We All, Made of Iron and Glass
by Aate
Summary: After the events of the Civil War, Tony gets kidnapped. In exchange for him, the kidnappers want one "SR". Too bad Tony doesn't give up friends, even if they were of the "ex" kind and had once left him in Siberia to freeze to death (after betraying him by protecting the murderer of his parents).
1. Tony: Where the Heart Is

It was the worst moment of his day.

"This is the worst moment of my day," he whispered to Peter, or at least that's what he would have done had May – as she had asked Tony to call her – not chosen just that moment to close the kitchen cabinet with a loud bang after taking an oven mitten out of it. As it happened, she did choose that moment to bang the cabinet closed and Tony and Peter both flinched at the sound, Peter focusing the gaze of his widened eyes on his empty plate while Tony snapped his mouth shut, sulking just the bit but also feeling the weight of guilt in his stomach.

"You could've just told me, you know," May said softly with her back to the table, opening the oven and reaching in with the oven mitten in hand to get the salmon out. The scent of cooked salmon, perfectly greasy and covered with white cream and chopped onions, filled the air and Tony's stomach couldn't stop growling at it. To be fair, he hadn't eaten since breakfast so it was understandable that he was hungry.

It was still Monday, right? Tony glanced at his phone subtly under the table: Wednesday, 6 PM.

Huh.

Well, no wonder he was hungry. It had, in any case, been nice of the Parkers to invite him for dinner. Tony smiled to himself and looked around in the kitchen.

It was one of the smallest kitchens Tony had ever been to, but the more he looked at it, the more charming he found it all- the rustic interior with slight cracks here and there on the walls to indicate all the places where there had once been a screw or a nail for one reason or another, the family photos of Peter and May smiling together on the fridge door, the spice cans above the oven... The kitchen looked like there was a family using it, like it was the heart of a home, and Tony felt... well, he felt so touched and honoured and, yes, _nervous_ to have been invited into the heart of their home like this, to share a meal with them, that he hadn't even asked why the table had been set in the kitchen and not in the dining hall (he of course knew in theory that there were no dining halls at the Parkers' home, but somehow he still assumed there had to be because his childhood home had had several and Peter was still sort of a kid so naturally there should have been at least one dining hall in Peter's childhood home as well).

"I'm an adult – I could have taken it," May was saying and Tony slipped the phone back into his pocket. "You should've told me the truth. Keeping the truth is as bad as lying."

"We're sorry," Peter said quickly, looking up from his plate, first at his aunt, then imploringly at Tony who wiped the smile off his face so he wouldn't come across as rude. He didn't want to be rude. He was rarely invited to anyone's home and he didn't want to be rude, not here, not to the Parkers. "We really are. Aren't we, Mr. Stark?"

"Sure," Tony hastened to agree. "That's what we are – sorry. No man in this wonderful kitchen has ever been as sorry as Peter and I are right at this moment."

He made a waving motion at the kitchen in general just in case it wasn't quite clear to which kitchen he was referring, and then at himself and Peter so no room was left to question which Tony and Peter were the ones feeling sorry.

All the gesturing was in vain, though, as May had turned her back to them and hadn't therefore seen the effort Tony had made to express the depth of their regret. Instead, she began to grate carrots furiously, her narrow shoulders visibly stiffened, and Tony felt the guilt in his stomach gaining more weight at the sight.

"Do you know who it was that told me the truth?" May asked over the sound of the grating, her dark ponytail bouncing from side to side. "I had to hear it from _Teresa Smith-Cunningham_. Can you believe that? Teresa Smith-Cunningham!"

Tony could hear Peter gulping.

"Yes, Peter," seethed May who had apparently heard it too. "It was _Teresa Smith-Cunningham_ who told me _the truth_! I had to hear it from her, of all people. Of all people, I had to hear it from Teresa!"

"Sorry …" Peter mumbled to the table, but May ignored the mumbled apology. Instead, she addressed his next words to Tony.

"Do you know who Teresa Smith-Cunningham is, Tony?"

People usually didn't expect him to remember people – and foor good reason, was fair to add, and Tony really wasn't sure if May earnestly expected him to know the answer to the question or if she was just asking to make a point (Pepper had sometimes _asked questions_ to make a point and Tony hadn't then known what to answer either) but Tony, as the sorriest man ever to have been sorry in May's kitchen, was determined to not disappoint her again, and therefore he wracked his brain just as furiously as May was grating the carrots.

Despite of his efforts, he could nevertheless only think of one Teresa, and while that Teresa was unlikely to be the Teresa of whom May was thinking, it was all he got, and so he had to go with,

"Mother Teresa?"

The grating stopped and Peter let out a strangled sound, sinking deeper into his chair, almost disappearing under the table. May gave Tony a sharp look over her shoulder.

"Mother Teresa?" she repeated, turning towards the table with a hand on her hip, studying Tony with narrowed eyes. "Are you making fun of me, Mr. Stark?"

Tony blinked, caught off guard both by the accusation and by the unexpected use of his surname. She always called him Tony and he always called her May and they both always called Peter Peter, except sometimes Tony called Peter other things, but it wasn't like May knew about that, and that wasn't the point, as the point was that she was supposed to call him Tony, not "Mr. Stark" because _that_ was the arrangement that suited them.

And Tony hadn't been making fun of her in the slightest! He had been earnest and sincere. The perfect example of earnestness and sincerity if there ever had been one, really, now that he thought about it, so how had she even come to such a conclusion?

Slightly offended by the false accusation but not willing to show it, Tony gave Peter a glance only to see that the boy was still half under the table trying to hide – so much for getting help from that direction.

Sighing to himself, Tony cleared his throat, meeting May's gaze.

"Sorry. Again," he said, trying to sound just as earnest and sincere as he was. "Should it be 'Aunt Teresa'?"

Peter groaned and hid his face in his hands, while May continued to stare at Tony, the suspicion on her face giving gradually way first to incredulity, then – much to Tony's bewilderment – amusement.

" _Mother_ Teresa died in the 1990's, Tony," she said, looking suddenly almost fond, before the gentle sparkle in her eyes turned into a glint of anger and her cheeks flushed. "And Teresa Smith-Cunningham is as much of a Mother Teresa as I am a pink fluffy bunny!"

She twirled around and soon the sound of furious grating filled the small kitchen again. Tony did his best to not think of her in a sexy pink bunny costume because, yes, inappropriate! She was _an aunt_ , for god's sake, and speaking of gods - mused Tony's brain, always quick to jump from one unrelated thing to another - one had to wonder what Thor had been up to recently because he hadn't been around since before…

Since before Siberia. Since before it all had gone to hell. Since before Tony had lost a considerable amount of friends – or rather, people he had thought were his friends, but who hadn't seemed to return the sentiment when it had all come down to it.

Tony felt his heart sink just as he always did when the events of the past two months unavoidably came to his mind. Not fully aware of what he was doing, his hand sneaked up to rub at his chest where he could still almost feel the impact of the shield.

 _Steve's weight on top of him, pressing him down. The cool calculation in Steve's eyes as he met Tony's gaze, raising the shield. The impact against Tony's chest, the impact that broke the Arc Reactor, the heart of his suit. Steve forcing Tony down, leaving him broken on the freezing cold ground, and then offering his warm hand to pull Barnes up to his feet._

 _The betrayal that broke their friendship and Tony's heart – if either one ever had existed._

"Teresa Smith-Cunningham," said May, cutting off Tony's dark thoughts, "is the mother of Maximillian Smith-Cunningham who is one of Peter's classmates. She's such a horrid woman, I hate to say. She is spiteful and malicious and always gossiping in the most mean-spirited manner. To hear the truth from her, of all people, in front of all the other moms… Can you imagine how humiliating it was for me?"

Tony cast a helpless look at Peter who was still hiding his face behind his hands, his neck almost as red as May's apron, but as no help was coming and as Tony didn't know what he was expected to say, he said nothing.

"She," continued May as if she hadn't been expecting Tony to say anything after all, " _she_ had made these chocolate brownies for today's school fair. The frosting was… Well, it _looked delicious_ and she had put colorful Smarties on top of the brownies. People loved them, they were sold out in half an hour, and _I_ was selling my cookies next to her stall and no-one – _no-one_ , not even the janitor who eats anything – wanted them and that's when Teresa Smith-Cunningham turned to smirk at me in her _infuriating_ manner and told me that avocado-filled oatmeal cookies with raisins on top did not seem to be 'as popular as I seemed to think' they were."

May dropped the grater into the sink, causing Peter with his spider senses to flinch at the sudden sound. She gathered the grated carrots into a glass bowl and put the bowl in the middle of the table, right next to the salmon.

"That's how I found out that you two had been lying to me when you pretended to like my avocado-filled oatmeal cookies with raisins on top," she said, sounding betrayed, and crossed her arms on her chest. "Would it have been too much to ask that you had been honest with me?"

"We shouldn't have lied to you, Aunt May," Peter said, visibly chastised, peeking at May through his fingers. "But you see, we didn't mean anything bad by it – we were just trying to spare your feelings."

And that. That right there. That. Was. Not. A good enough justification for anything ever anymore.

"Fuck!" the curse bursted out before Tony was even fully aware of it, and he received two equally startled looks, both laced with disapproval.

"Kindly do not swear around Peter, Tony," said May just as Peter pleaded, "Mr. Stark – don't swear where Aunt May can hear you!"

"Sorry," said Tony to them both, clenching his fists, "but you are absolutely right, May – we _should_ have been honest with you about the cookies. We _were_ trying to spare your feelings, but you just ended up twice as hurt and humiliated because of that. We were shortsighted."

Peter and May were both staring at him and suddenly Tony felt terribly self-conscious. His palms were beginning to sweat and he hastily continued to explain just in case he hadn't made any sense because he was well aware that sometimes he didn't – make sense, that was – but he wasn't sure if this was one of those times:

"I should invent glasses for people who are similarly shortsighted. Or I _would_ , but I probably _couldn't_ because I'm not good at thinking things fully through – poor attention span, they say, and absolutely terrible impulse control, I know – and that would be a requirement if I ever wanted to invent glasses for people who are bad at thinking things through – or perhaps I could turn that into an advantage because I would at least understand the problem – but just because the glasses are not one of my current projects doesn't mean I'm not sorry because I am, and Peter is too, and even though you can't bake good cookies, May, you are a good aunt in many other ways, more important ways – I'm sure Peter agrees with that – and more to the point, everyone needs a flaw– I've got plenty of those, like, _loads_ , as you must know if you've ever even glanced at the news – and it's just as well that your only flaw is the inability to bake good cookies."

"And I'll buy all your avocado-filled oatmeal cookies with raisins on top!" he promised vehemently. "I'll buy them all and you can tell this Aunt Teresa that she can go stick the brownies up the same place where all her other crap is coming from! Or I can have one of my STARRkY SKY aircrafts write that on the sky, if you'd rather. Just give me her address and we can get it done today right above her house."

Tony had his Stark phone in his hand before he had finished talking and he was now looking down at it, already typing commands for FRIDAY to get the planes prepared for flying.

A slender finger came to his view and May tapped the screen until it was turned off.

"No need for that, Tony," May said with a faint smile on her lips. "But… thank you. I appreciate the sentiment."

Even though she was smiling, her eyes were concerned, as if she was understanding more than she was letting on. Tony looked away, unable to meet the searching gaze for longer.

"We really are sorry, Aunt May," said Peter to the silence that fell in the kitchen.

May sighed and went to the sink to rinse the grater and the chopping board.

"Yes, well," she said. "I forgive you both, but rest assured that I won't give up until I have baked the kind of cookies that you both can honestly say you like. I won't let Teresa Smith-Cunningham deflate my baking spirit."

Tony exchanged an apprehensive look with Peter.

They sat down to enjoy mashed potatoes, salmon and grated carrots – the most satisfying dinner Tony had had all week – but afterwards, when Tony thanked for the meal and prepared to leave, he happened to take a glance at the grocery list May had placed on the phone table by the front door.

 _For the cookies:  
Coconut, Cottage Cheese, Eggs, Lima Beans, More Raisins _

Tony looked from the list at May's smiling face.

It was the second worst moment of Tony's day.

Or so he thought.

It wasn't like he could have yet known that The Salivating Scorpions were coming for him. After all, he didn't yet even know of their existence.

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you for reading!_

 _I like the idea of Tony and Peter's friendship/mentorship. The idea for this fic stems from that and I hope you've enjoyed this first chapter. If you'd like to see more chapters, please leave a review or PM me just so I know there's someone reading._


	2. Tony: A Scorpion

_A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! You fueled my writing._

* * *

When Tony got back to the Tower some time after eight, there was a nervous-looking woman waiting for him by his private elevator. According to her name tag, her name was "Eleanore Jenkins", but with her sturdy build and short, brown hair she reminded Tony so much of his former driver, Happy Hogan that it was obvious – at least to Tony – that there had to be a mistake on the name tag.

Miss Hogan – Tony instantly corrected her name in his mind – was dressed in the green uniform of his postal staff and she had her arms so full of letters and brown packages that they formed sort of a small tower that half hid her face behind it. As soon as she noticed Tony, her back stiffened as if the mere idea of having to communicate with her boss was akin to endodontic therapy as far as she was concerned.

Tony was still on the phone with Peter who had called him frantically about five minutes after Tony had left from the Parkers. Hearing the terrified tone of Peter's voice, Tony had instantly been on alert, ready to suit up in case Spider-Man needed back-up, but it had soon turned out that Peter was merely worrying over some girl who had just sent him a text, asking him if he would like to meet up after school to compare history notes.

For some inexplicable reason Peter – who was supposed to be a smart kid – had apparently decided that Tony was the person to call when it came to girl problems. It was flattering, sure, though also went to show that Peter didn't yet know Tony all that well. Because, seriously? What did Tony know about relationships?

"You were together with Miss Potts for ages," insisted Peter, "and women like you. So, please, Mr. Stark, I really like this girl. How can I impress her?"

Tony was fairly certain that May would kill him if he would tell Peter even the third of the things Tony had done over the years to impress the women and men he had found attractive.

"Speak some foreign language," he therefore went for the first innocent suggestion that popped into his mind. "Like Swedish, for instance. Just go, 'Vill du resa med mig till Stockholm?' and then present her with the tickets to Stockholm. I hear it's nice this time of the year. The whole romantic Scandinavian experience and all that."

"We're minors," Peter sounded downcast. "We can't just leave the country on a whim."

Miss Hogan was standing in front of Tony with her tower of packages, shifting her weight from foot to foot, looking more and more nervous by the moment.

"Mr. S-Stark," she managed, sounding out of breath. "These c-came f-for you."

She tried to thrust her burden to him, but he took a step backwards, putting up the hand that wasn't holding the phone, refusing to touch any of it.

"Excuse me for one moment, Peter," he said to the phone before putting it momentarily on his chest, turning his attention to Miss Hogan.

"I don't like to be handed things," he sniffed, giving her a haughty look over his black sunglasses. "And more importantly," he used the phone to gesture towards the various packages she was barely managing to keep in her hold at once, "there is too much post going on here. I only accept either one letter or one package per day, max. I _have_ told this to the head of my postal staff before and she is supposed to choose the package or the letter on my behalf and then bring it personally up to the penthouse."

There was a reprimand in his words and she flushed bright red, but he wasn't being rude, he decided; she was being incompetent by ignoring the usual procedure of Tony's post delivery. She was quite likely new at her job.

"Very well, sir," Miss Hogan gasped, visibly struggling to keep the high pile of packages balanced on her arms. "Sorry, sir. Which letter or package would you like?"

She looked outright miserable and, sighing, Tony took pity on her, eyeing the packages with less than a little enthusiasm.

"Just hand one over," he eventually decided, wriggling his fingers impatiently, and she almost dropped half of her burden in her haste to hand him a white envelope.

"Gah, I hate to be handed things," he muttered by way of thanks and slipped the envelope into the pocket of his grey trousers without even bothering to look at it. "Make sure to get your name tag fixed, by the way. It looks like there's a mistake on it."

Miss Hogan blanced, looking down at her name tag the best she could with all the packages.

Tony rolled his eyes.

"You may go now, Miss Hogan," he said, making a shooing motion with his forefinger. "Chop chop."

She didn't need to be told twice.

"Sorry, Peter," Tony said to the phone, stepping into the elevator. "Where were we?"

As soon as the elevator doors closed behind him with a ping, he forgot all about Eleanore Jenkins – as well as about the envelope in his pocket.

He would later come to regret it.

* * *

There was a scorpion on his nightstand.

Tony came to an abrupt halt when he saw it. He was fairly certain that the moss-colored glass figurine hadn't been there the last time he had left bed – sometime Monday morning, that was. In fact, he could have sworn he hadn't seen it before in his life and was therefore positive that he wasn't the one to have put it on the nightstand.

"FRIDAY," he called out sharply, eyes quickly taking in the rest of the room, though nothing else seemed out of place. Having finished the phone call with Peter already, he checked the phone to make sure the Tower security hadn't left him any messages without his notice - they hadn't and Tony lowered the device onto the bed. "Has someone been in here while I've been away?"

There were no surveillance cameras in the bedroom because that was the way Pepper had preferred it, but outside the bedroom in the penthouse there were several, and FRIDAY was instructed to scan the bedroom automatically once every hour as that was the compromise Pepper and Tony had managed to make. Even though they were no longer together, Tony still hadn't changed the surveillance protocol for the bedroom, sentimental of him though it might have been.

"No, boss," came FRIDAY's reply. "I would have informed you had such a thing occurred. My coding doesn't allow me to let even the cleaning personnel into your bedroom."

That was true. The bedroom was Tony's sanctuary and he preferred to keep it clean by himself with the help of some of his cleaning robots. Rhodey and Vision respected his privacy – Vision would have been distraught with himself had he knowingly intruded and Rhodey, for his part, had compared Tony's bedroom to an ancient Egyptian tomb in more than one occasion, jokingly saying that he "wouldn't fancy" getting a curse put on him for trying to "raid the tomb of Tonynkhamon".

And the only other person, beside Tony, who could have possibly had easy access to the room? Well, Pepper no longer had any business in his bedroom or even any interest to be in it so it was likely among the places she was currently consciously avoiding.

Frowning, Tony took a step closer to the nightstand, regarding the green scorpion warily. His gut was screaming at him, telling him that this – this – this was bad news, whatever this was. Something about the figurine was nagging the hell out of him – and obviously, it shouldn't have been in his bedroom in the first place.

Disturbed, he couldn't help but glance over his shoulder, half waiting for someone – Steve, Natasha, Clint, Loki – to step out of hiding. A shiver ran down his spine. It filled him with ice, the thought that one of his former team mates might have snuck into his bedroom, it left him feeling violated.

"FRIDAY," he called out again, trying to take deep breaths to steady his pounding heart. "FRIDAY, there's no-one in the penthouse beside me, is there? No-one, you know, hiding?"

"No, boss," FRIDAY's tone was soothing as if she was sensing his distress. "There is no-one in this level but you. James Rhodes and Vision are in the common level below you, singing karaoke. Would you like for me to ask them to join you?"

"No," mumbled Tony, rubbing at his chest. He could feel it again, he could feel the unyielding ground beneath him, the unyielding form of Captain America on top of him.

 _Hatred as cold and consuming as the wind of Siberian winter, blowing out all the warmth and light and love on its way. Unstoppable. Impossible to control. The blurred lines of revenge and justice, hard to tell one from the other. The sound of his nightmares: the scraping whine of the shield crashing into the casing of the Arc Reactor, shutting down his suit, leaving him helpless, leaving him broken, leaving him empty but for all the pain and hurt and burning anger._

Tony cleared his throat and tried to vanish the ever lingering nightmares.

"Do a scan. Perimeter code YELLOW-32Y," he said and defined, "Just in case of Ant-Man, or someone invisible."

The results came back negative. FRIDAY had detected a few spiders and some other harmless insects, but beside Tony, there were no other human life forms in the penthouse.

"Check out for any traces of recent teleportation," Tony said, grasping at straws but unwilling to give up yet. "And scan the outer walls of the tower as well. I want to know if someone has come in here through the windows, or even attempted such a thing."

He walked to the large windows and glanced down at a rainy New York City before running his hands along the seams, the glass cool against his palms, trying to find any cracks that could have pointed out to someone having gained access to the room via that way. He shivered, thinking of the Winter Soldier trying to crawl into his bedroom through a window, and hurriedly made a mental note to get some lasers installed in the windows, only to instantly disregard the idea as he didn't want to risk Peter getting hit by a laser – you never knew if there would one day be a pressing need for the spiderling to climb the outer walls of the Stark Tower, after all.

According to FRIDAY, there were no detectable signs of neither teleportation nor any break-ins. When Tony then asked her to check her logs to see if she had been partially off at all in the past month – more importantly since Monday – she huffed out loud, offended, but did as she was told. It turned out, she had been fully functional the whole month. No-one had tried to tamper with her, or if they had, they had been cautious and good enough to not have left any signs of it.

Tony let his arms fall to his sides, giving the windows one last searching look before turning his back to them. He stepped back to the bed, eyeing the scorpion with suspicion.

Perhaps, he thought, perhaps the person responsible for the figurine's unexpected appearance was he himself. He _did_ , after all, have a relatively frequent tendency to "mind walk" so it was entirely possible that he had bought the scorpion from somewhere and had brought it here whilst his mind had been fully occupied with numbers and shapes and possibilities and ideas. He sometimes did things like that when his mind was particularly busy, his body began to sort of work on automatic.

Like that one time when Pepper had found a llama in her bathing tub. She had been startled and Tony had been equally startled when she, looking (sexy and) furious in her lilac bathing robe, had walked the wet llama into his workshop only to start yelling at him about leaving animals in the bathroom where they "ate her best skin products". He had sworn he had no idea where the llama had come from because he truthfully, honestly hadn't had any idea, but then JARVIS had gone and informed them that, "Actually, sir, you did buy the llama this afternoon while you were doing upgrades on the new Stark Tablet. You named her Saint Elephant and left her in the bathroom with hay and a tub full of drinking water with, I believe, the intention of training her to bring you breakfast."

So the point was, sometimes Tony wasn't quite aware of doing things and, truthfully, he might have well placed the scorpion on the nightstand himself without a clear memory of that happening. Because, really, it _was_ his bedroom and it wasn't like his private bedroom was easily accessible to just anyone (in any manner – he did have standards, against the popular belief). It wasn't like someone could have just walked in and left the scorpion there on the nightstand, especially without FRIDAY's notice and interference. So it was logical to conclude that Tony had likely therefore been mind walking again and the glassy scorpion was a result of that, like so many other things in his bedroom.

Tony ran a trembling hand through his hair and let out a weak chuckle. Right. No Captain Americas hiding under the bed. No Winter Soldiers trying to climb in. Nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen. Move on, folks, all was as it should be and so on.

"Where did that scorpion come from, FRIDAY?" he asked to put his mind at ease. The Armani tie felt too tight and Tony loosened it with a few practiced moves, pulling it off and throwing it onto the bed where his Brioni suit jacket soon made it company. "When did I bring it here?"

While Tony unbuttoned his white shirt, FRIDAY remained silent. When she eventually answered, she sounded hesitant,

"I have no answer to either question, boss. I do not know where the figurine in question came from and I cannot find any evidence that it would have been you who brought it here. The first scan I have of the figurine in its current place is marked as yesterday, Tuesday 8 PM. There are no signs of the figurine in the automatic scan I took yesterday at 7 PM, but based on the cameras outside the bedroom and all the other available information, no-one has entered the room since Monday 6.32 AM when you left for breakfast."

Mind already working on several possibilities while his body took over and neatly folded his white dress shirt onto the bed, Tony asked slowly, "What exactly are you saying?"

"If you don't mind me using a common idiom, boss, it looks like the figurine appeared 'out of thin air' yesterday sometime between seven PM and eight PM."

"If someone tiny like, say, Ant-Man had come in here via, I don't know, air vents or something with that thing in his pocket, would your censors have detected him?"

"Possibly not if the intruder was less than three inches tall," admitted FRIDAY, "but if he had, at any point, grown bigger than that, I would have immediately noticed his presence. I have been coded to detect and record any notable movement in your bedroom during your absences."

"Yeah, I know, I was the one to do the coding," Tony grunted. "And FRIDAY, my gal? It sounds like you better take a look at the situation in Wakanda."

Tony _was_ Tony Stark, after all – one of the greatest minds of his time – and after Steve had sent him the package with the letter and the flip phone, it had taken Tony and FRIDAY about forty-five minutes to get the exact coordinates on the location of Steve's phone. Granted, it had taken almost two days after that to get undetectable access to the security cameras in the Wakandan compound Steve's phone's coordinates had pointed them to, but the time-consuming efforts had been worth it as they had proved that the runaway Avengers were, in fact, staying at the Wakandan compound with the courtesy of King T'Challa.

While Tony's nightmares remained just as terrifying, the continued certainty that there was at least an ocean between him and the people whom he had once proudly called his friends made it a tad easier for him to breathe during daytime – at least he wasn't about to get an arrow in the eye in his immediate future.

"Go for the surveillance cameras 333A and 542F for starters," Tony advised FRIDAY, "and find out if all our exiles are accounted for. In particular, find out if Scott Lang is still in Wakanda. If there's any chance that he might be lurking around in my tower, inform me instantly and figure out his location."

"Sure thing, boss."

Tony pulled his sweaty undershirt over his head and threw it to the general direction of the bed. Shirtless, scratching his bare belly, he went around the bed to kneel in front of the nightstand. He studied the figurine closely, taking in the smooth surface and the immaculate details – the pincers, the abdomen, the eight eyes, the sting and the two barely visible poison glands in the tail. The scorpion was about the size of a satsuma and really quite lifelike, and hadn't it been for the green transparent glass it was made of, it might have as well been a real scorpion.

"Scott Lang, Steven Rogers, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff and James Barnes," spoke FRIDAY, "all remain in Wakanda, currently in various states of sleep, based on the data available to me. It is unlikely that any one of them would have left the country in the recent days."

Tony made a sound of acknowledgement, relieved.

"Keep an eye on them. Let me know, if the situation changes."

"Yes, boss."

Tony eyed the scorpion critically.

"It's not alive, is it?" he wondered out loud. "Perhaps it crawled in here on its own as it seems like no-one could've brought it here. It's not big, you wouldn't have noticed it moving around."

"Boss," FRIDAY scoffed, "according to my material analysis, the object is comprised of a non-crystalline amorphous solid."

"I.e. glass, in this case."

"Precisely, and glass objects are generally not considered to be 'alive'."

"I didn't ask if glass objects are generally considered to be alive or not," said Tony, never taking his eyes off the scorpion in case it happened to move, "but if this particular object shows currently any vital signs. I would've seen weirder things in my life than a living glass scorpion, you know – I am, after all, basically the proud father of an omnipotent being who was born as an adult, can float through solid objects and is worthy enough to yield Mjölnir but still refuses to eat celery like most children because it 'appears unpleasant' to him."

Not that Vision needed to eat, but Tony liked to feed him things and Vision was fascinated by his own digestive system, so usually it worked out just fine for both parties involved.

"Point taken," said FRIDAY. "The object doesn't generate heat. It does not have a pulse and it is not breathing. I cannot detect any internal movement that could be described as blood flow."

"Uh-huh," said Tony, raising a finger, " _but_ – and here's the big but – it's made of _glass_ , so not detecting a pulse or blood flow doesn't necessarily mean it's not a living thing."

"As you say, boss," FRIDAY agreed easily. "May I ask what kind of signs would be considered signs of life when it comes to a glass object?"

"If the glass object lashes out at you, for one."

"Duly noted," said FRIDAY apprehensively, while Tony was already pulling open the drawer of his nightstand, making sure to keep his movements steady and slow in case the glass figurine turned out to be alive – he didn't want to startle it and get stung, after all. He fished for a pen and having found what he was after, took a hold of it like he would of a small sword. Using it, he poked the scorpion straight in the abdomen.

The scorpion didn't move.

So Tony poked it again, harder.

It still didn't move.

Tony kept poking the scorpion in the abdomen, in the claws, in the tail, even in the tiny eyes, but it never once moved, apart from being poked around on the nightstand by Tony.

Eventually, disappointed that he hadn't encountered a living glass scorpion after all, Tony sighed and put the pen back into the drawer. He gave a bit of a push and the drawer closed smoothly.

"Aren't you a mysterious little thing," he mused softly, narrowing his eyes at the scorpion.

He wondered if the scorpion could be some kind of a machine, if it had crawled into his room on its own despite of not being a living thing - he decided to do further tests later.

"How it came to be here is one question," Tony pondered out loud, "but _why_ it came to be here is important as well - what's the purpose of it?"

He wondered if the scorpion was supposed to be a message of some kind: "Tony Stark – you are as venomous as a scorpion," would have been the most likely message, but "Tony Stark – die from scorpion venom" might have been a possibility as well. In any case, the message would have unlikely been anything kind and supportive, though one could of course always wish that the figurine had been an attempt at a gift from a fan.

"I'll be taking a quick shower now," Tony told FRIDAY, pushing himself up to his feet. "When I come back, I will be bringing the scorpion for you to analyze so start preparing the machinery. I want all the information you can give me about it. We better consider its appearance a security breach code six until further notice."

"Roger that," said FRIDAY.

Tony took his phone from the bed and slipped it into his trouser pocket - only to feel an edge of paper with his fingertips. Absent-mindedly, he pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket and took a look at it. It was nothing more exciting than the envelope Miss Hogan had handed over to him earlier.

Unimpressed, Tony turned the envelope in his hand this way and that. It was white and unassuming and had a commercial flap. It was addressed to "Mr. A. Stark" and the whole experience of holding it in his hand was so _dull_ and _boring_ and he had more pressing matters to deal with that Tony had half a mind to cast it aside for one of his hoovering robots to get rid of. He didn't, however, but instead ripped it carelessly open since it was already in his hand - might as well.

While walking towards the bathing room, he unfolded the letter and gave it an uninterested glance, fully expecting either fan mail or some minor entrepreneur hoping to get his attention. What he saw made him stop on his tracks: In the center of the letter, there was a photo of the scorpion figurine, the exact one that Tony now had on his nightstand. Beneath it, someone had neatly typed,

 _Where is SR, your ever so loyal friend? You may tell him that hiding is_  
 _as useless as his efforts to "do good"._  
 _We are hungry and we are coming._  
 _We are salivating for blood._  
 _Whose shall it be?_  
 _His?_  
 _Or yours?_  
 _That depends entirely on you, Anthony Stark._

"Fuck the shower," swore Tony. "FRIDAY, I'm going to bring you stuff to analyze right now. I need to know all that you can tell me about this letter, the envelope and that scorpion, starting with fingerprints, ending with everything."

"Very well, boss," came the prompt answer. "I am preparing the machinery for the analyses as we speak."

Vague though the letter had otherwise been, the threat in it was clear. While this hardly was the first threat Tony had received in his lifetime, it was to be taken seriously as the same people who were behind it had managed to get access to Tony's bedroom to leave the scorpion figurine there without leaving any detectable trace of how they had done it or who they were – a feat not to be taken lightly.

"SR" mostly likely stood for "Steve Rogers" and whoever it was that had written the letter apparently mistakenly believed that Tony and Steve were still friends. And while Tony personally might no longer have _wanted_ to care for neither Captain Rogers nor his group of vigilantes, he couldn't stifle his sudden worry, even though he did his best to ignore it. He tried to convince himself that he didn't care at all if something was to happen to Steve - it was the supersoldier Captain America that he had to feel professional concern for, purely in a tactical sense, as he was well aware that the world could one day need the man's protection. To protect his former friend was to protect the protection of the world. It was that simple, all personal feelings aside.

Tony marched to his nightstand, took a Kleenex out of the drawer and – with the help of the Kleenex – grasped the scorpion's claw carefully so he wouldn't taint it, preparing to carry it to his workshop for a proper analysis along with the letter and the envelope.

His fingers had barely tightened their hold on the claw, however, when suddenly the figurine moved. The scorpion's tail came down, quick as a lightning, and it happened so fast that Tony saw the tiny puncture wound on his wrist before he felt any pain. Surprised, more than anything, he stared at the wound.

"Boss?" came FRIDAY's worried voice. "Boss?"

Tony stared at the wound, blinking, and then looked at the glass scorpion, which was now wriggling in his hold angrily, trying to loosen itself from his grasp.

"I seem to have a small puncture wound on my wrist, FRIDAY," he said. "Minimal bleeding, but better call for paramedics, just in case glass scorpions are venomous. And about what you asked me earlier, I think I might have to rethink my views on 'what kind of signs would be considered signs of life when it comes to a glass object' because this blasted little thing is wriggling around like I'd just called its mother a plastic shrimp."

"Move as little as possible, boss," FRIDAY adviced, sounding concerned, "and stay calm. The paramedics are on their way and I have notified both James Rhodes and Vision on what has happened. They will be here minutely."

Tony opened his mouth to answer, but much to his surprise, no voice came out. He tried again, but while he could open his mouth just fine, he couldn't get any air out. It appeared, Tony thought, fighting off panic, that glass scorpions _were_ indeed venomous because he was sure as hell already starting to suffer from the venom's effects. Whatever the scorpion had entered into his blood circulation seemed to be affecting him almost as fast as the scorpion had stung him.

His fingers went limp and the wriggling scorpion slipped from his grasp, falling onto the floor, shattering into thousand pieces with a terrified squeak. In a way, the sight of the broken scorpion was almost pretty, Tony thought as his suddenly weak knees hit the floor, sharp shards of glass piercing the skin of his legs and knees. He was aware of FRIDAY calling for him from somewhere distant, telling him to remain calm, but looking at the stunning way light was playing on the glass shards, none of it somehow mattered.

Tony laid down onto the shards almost willingly. Something in his mind suggested that it was not, perhaps, the smartest of ideas, but the louder part insisted that, yes, it was, and who was he to say no to such a good idea. Peaceful rest, that's what the shards seemed to offer for him and that's exactly what he wanted. Rest. No nightmares, no dreams. Rest.

Except, rest was something he didn't get.

As soon as he had laid down and relaxed all his muscles, prepared to fall asleep, the sleep didn't come. Quite the opposite - his awareness returned like someone had jerked the curtains open.

FRIDAY was calling for him, sounding equally insistent and worried. Tony wanted to answer to her, tell her that he was fine, but he couldn't talk, _couldn't_ form the words, _couldn't_ even move his lips. He found himself lying on the floor, his skin burning from where the shards had pierced it, his right cheek pressed against the edge of his familiar soft carpet. In what was sure to be one of the most terrifying moments of his life, Tony realized that

he couldn't move.

He could not move. Not a muscle. Not even his pinkie, even though he tried to do just that several times. He couldn't blink or close his eyes, and when he expected for his heart to start pounding and for his breathing to become shallow due to panic, he suddenly realized that nothing of the kind was happening – his heart didn't start pounding nor did his breathing change. Because his heart _wasn't beating_ and he _wasn't breathing_.

Had he died? Was this death?

The part of him that wasn't terrified was - simply put it - fascinated.

There was suddenly a cool hand on his bare shoulder and someone shook him.

"Mr. Stark!" Vision called his name. "Mr. Stark!"

"I detect no signs of life," Tony heard FRIDAY saying and hadn't he been absolutely freaking out over the situation, he might have noticed the heartbroken tone of her voice. As it happened, though, Tony was screaming in his head, screaming that he was not dead, that he was there, that it was all a mistake because he was _aware_ and that _was_ a sign of life, was it not, and that he would improve FRIDAY's coding the moment he could move again because she was now wrong wrong wrong.

"Oh, no. No no," Tony heard Vision's voice and a knee came into Tony's line of vision, but as he couldn't even move his pupils, that was all he could see of his friend, of his kid. Tony felt Vision pressing his ear against his back as if to listen for the nonexistent sound of his heart and Tony could have _cried_ when the being slowly pulled back letting out a sound that could only be described as something between a resigned sigh and a broken whimper.

Just then the sound of the door being wrenched open echoed in the room and in the next instant Rhodey was yelling, "I've got the defibrillator – Vision, MAKE ROOM!"

"It is too late," Vision said softly. "He is already gone."

"The hell he is," swore Rhodey and Tony could have kissed him right then and there, so relieved he was that Rhodey wasn't giving up on him. "Now let's help him, Vision."

They took a firm hold of him, Rhodey and Vision, and – after a blurry of images as he was being turned onto his back – Tony's gaze was stuck on the ceiling, whether he wanted that or not.

The next few minutes were terrible. His friends tried to defibrillate him, to restart his heart, to give him CPR. Rhodey pinched Tony's nose closed with his fingers and pressed his lips against Tony's, blowing warm air into Tony's mouth, into his lungs, and Tony? Tony took back whatever it was that he had thought about kissing Rhodey - he would _never again_ want Rhodey's lips anywhere near his. Vision was pushing down in the center of his chest rhythmically and every so often there was a mechanical voice telling them to "clear" before Tony was given a powerful shock that felt like someone was hitting him in the chest with a burning hammer.

He begged for his friends to stop, it _hurt_ , they were hurting him, they were torturing him, but they didn't hear him, couldn't hear him, and when his body refused to react or to show any vital signs, Vision and Rhodey's attempts grew more and more desperate. The few times Rhodey's face came to Tony's narrow line of sight, tears were flowing down his best friend's cheeks as he pleaded Tony angrily to "come back, you fucking son of a bitch, don't do this to me, please Tony" and Tony was helpless to do anything, helpless to "go back" or to console his friend. He hated, _hated_ it.

Soon his sanctuary, the bedroom was filled with more people and he wanted to yell at them to get out, to respect his privacy. He didn't want anyone, let alone faceless strangers, to see him like this, but no-one cared about his wishes. Vision and Rhodey's familiar hands disappeared and, instead, a whole crowd of paramedics began to touch him, to shed light into his pupils, to listen to his heartbeat. He heard them whisper that he was dead, but they kept on going for Rhodey and Vision's sake. A hand reached out to close his eyes and then he was loaded onto a stretcher and into the helicopter that was waiting on his very own landing pad.

"I'm sorry, sirs," he heard a deep voice saying, "but you can't come with us. There's no room for other passengers in the chopper."

"We'll fly by you," Vision's steady voice put in. "We are not leaving Mr. Stark when he needs us the most."

"His AI was talking about a scorpion and some kind of venom," the deep voice continued. "If you want to help your friend, stay here and find out what the AI was talking about. If there was a scorpion, we need to find out what kind it was and the sooner, the better."

"Very well," Vision agreed after a heartbeat, sounding reluctant. "We will find the scorpion, if that will help Mr. Stark."

The medic didn't answer, and suddenly there was a calloused hand grasping Tony by the hair.

"Don't you fucking dare die, Tony," Rhodey was hissing at him and the grasp in his hair tightened - Tony felt like throwing up, listening helplessly to his friend's pleading. "Don't you fucking dare let it end like this, you hear me. They say you're dead, but you can't be. You _can't_ be. Please, Tony, for me, for Vision. We'll find the scorpion and then we'll come to see you in the hospital. Don't give up."

Rhodey's hands disappeared and Tony felt bereft as if the helm had been taken from him and he had been left sailing the sea alone with no way to control the ship. He screamed Rhodey's name, begging his friend to come back, but Rhodey never heard him, never answered, his touch never returned. Tony called for Vision, for FRIDAY, but neither one heard him, neither one answered.

Soon Tony could feel the chopper taking off, rising higher, beginning to fly. And then, then Tony could sense someone leaning over him. There was a warm, moist breath on his cheek, a low chuckle, and the deep voice - the same that had adviced Rhodey and Vision to search for the broken scorpion - whispered in his ear over the sound of the rotor,

"I know you can hear me, Mr. Stark. The paralysis will wear off soon enough, the effects are temporary. Now that you know what it would be like to die, I'm sure you fully understand your predicament. The Salivating Scorpions have got you and we are hungry. Whose blood shall we have? Yours? Or your friend's? That depends entirely on you."

And while Tony was still terrified and alone and hurting, he was now also furious because, seriously? Had he just been kidnapped from his own bedroom?

Had he been able to move, he would have spit the man above him in the face.

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 _A/N: I hope this chapter wasn't too confusing to follow. Please leave a review to let me know what you thought. :)_


	3. Tony: Kidnapped

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews!_

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The wind, bringing with it the sharp salty scent of the Atlantic Ocean, caressed his face, played with his hair.

Before it had flown away, the helicopter had left Tony and the two kidnappers – still dressed in their paramedic uniforms with the name tags of "Gregory" and "Henson" attached to their chests – on a clearing in the middle of nowhere where a photographer and five goons – wearing skintight wetsuits, holding rifles, armed to the teeth – had been waiting for them. There had been some greetings along the lines of "hail to The Scorpion" and "may Her venom never be diluted" whilst Tony, shirtless and without shoes and barely holding himself upright due to the lingering effects of the scorpion's venom, had been handcuffed and manhandled onto his knees with several rifles pointed at his head.

The photographer, a middle-aged man with a bushy red beard and a potbelly, had then taken photos of Tony from various angles, muttering to himself about "poor lighting" and "getting better contrast" and Tony had given the camera his brightest smile, making an offhand comment about how they needn't have gone through all the trouble for a simple photoshoot because he was always ready and willing to pose. That had earned him a bloody nose which, according to the photographer, was "just what was needed" because it had given the photos "a satisfyingly dramatic effect".

The group was now walking along the desolate shore, the roar of waves accompanying their silent march. It was early morning, the Sun had barely risen, and Tony's movements were still clumsy and slow and his sock-clad feet were unsteady on the slippery ground. It all came to the point that he had to lean against Henson, a small blonde man with square glasses, lest he didn't fall over, much to the displeasure of Henson who was quick to pull a pair of transparent rubber gloves out of the front pocket of his paramedic uniform and put them on.

"I can't do this," Henson – or whatever his real name might have been – hissed at Gregory who towered over all the other men, his considerably large body casting a shadow on Tony in an ominous manner. "You know I hate to be touched by strangers, especially if they have not been purified by The Scorpion."

"Don't start about the germs again," Gregory grumbled in his deep voice. "It's all in your head anyway."

"It's a phobia," Henson argued. "It's a legit thing – there was even an article about it on _Buzzfeed_."

"Yes," grunted Gregory, "but _you_ don't have that phobia."

"I spend most of my time shaking people's hands," put in Tony, unable to hold his tongue. "So many hands to shake, you wouldn't believe it. As a result, I'm covered in germs from head to toe, really, and I might be carrying something fatal – I probably am, come to think of it – so you should do the wise thing and let me go before you catch it too. You know what, I'll even throw in a hand soap recommendation, if you pinky swear that you won't shoot me."

Perhaps the shove shouldn't have been all that unexpected, all things considered, but it still took Tony off guard. He fell onto the ground, barely managing to protect his face with his cuffed hands. The force behind the push had been such that it caused him to glide on the muck on his front for at least a yard, and no sooner had he come to a halt – gagging and spitting, trying to get rid off the loose mud that had managed to find its way into his mouth and nostrils – than a large boot stepped heavily onto his bare back between his shoulder blades, forcing all air out of him, pressing him deeper into the mud, forcing him to stay still on his stomach.

"I'm so not recommending you any soaps," gasped Tony. "Your loss."

The cold metal barrel of a rifle came to rest against his neck and Tony froze where he was, his pulse quickening.

"I don't respond well to jokes," spoke Gregory, sounding almost bored. "I have no sense of humor."

"None whatsoever," agreed Henson jovially. "He would be the perfect example of a stereotypical German – no sense of humor, always on time, and if he could, he would get married with rules and structure – except that he's not German. Born and raised in Miami, as it happens."

"Good for you, buddy," managed Tony from his uncomfortable position. "And just so you know, I'm _not joking_ when I tell you that _this_ ," he would have gestured between them had his hands had enough room to move, "this whole kidnapping thing that's going on here, this won't end well for any one of you."

"I don't have any sense of humor, but even I find that funny," against his claim, Gregory didn't sound amused at all. "And it's you for whom this won't end well: you're in some deep shit."

"Deep mud," corrected Tony, shivering, because, yes, the mud was cold and he was only wearing his Brioni trousers, known more for being stylish and expensive than for being any good for crawling in mud. "What's your address, by the way? Because you'll be paying my laundry bill."

"Now, now," said Henson. "No need to involve any costly laundry services when we have a good ocean right next to us, boys, don't you think?"

There was a moment of silence and then, as if Gregory had been given a wordless sign, the boot on Tony's back disappeared and Tony was being pulled up by the hair by Gregory. It hurt and he gritted his teeth, but refused to make a sound. His arms were quickly grasped by two of the goons who then picked him up and, with the help of two other men who took a hold of Tony's kicking legs, carried him into the ocean.

"Water torture, that's so last decade," Tony managed, more scared than he was letting on, before he was submerged in the cold water.

There was no air and he missed breathing instantly. There was nothing but suffocation and the sound of roaring water and the water that felt freezing on his already shivering body and the strong hands that held him underwater, refusing to let go off his trashing body. He was screaming in his head, swearing at the bastards who had taken him from his home. He held his breath, fighting off panic, fighting off the memories of Afghanistan, straining his lungs – straining, straining, _straining_ – but soon there was nothing left to hold in and he watched as the last of the bubbles left his mouth, and then he was drowning, _he was drowning_ , he tasted salty water, it was in his mouth-

And in the next instant, sunlight warm on his skin and _oxygen_ – precious, lovely, wonderful oxygen – all around him and he took a lungful after a lungful of it, greedily, desperately, coughing.

The men hauled him out of the water and dropped him unceremoniously onto his knees on the mucky ground where he _wheezed_ and tried to steady his breathing.

The kidnappers were trying to scare him, that much was obvious, but Tony wondered if his impromptu swim had nevertheless been more about trying to shut down any potential technology – including trackers – he might have still had on him than about giving him a lesson. Even though Henson and Gregory had stripped him off his possessions while he had laid there in the chopper, paralyzed and unable to do anything about it, even though they had scanned him and cut all Stark-tech enhancements out of his skin with scalpels, even though they had taken his hand device, his watch, all his rings that contained things even futurists would have called "futuristic" and even his belt, and had left him with only his underwear, trousers and socks, dumbing all his other things into the ocean, their concerns were still justifiable – he was Tony Stark, after all, and this was hardly the worst situation he had found himself in.

He hoped.

"Remind me-" Tony gasped when he could finally talk again, "Remind me to book a session with my therapist. It will be a refreshing change to talk to him about something other than superhero-related problems for once, because, seriously, now that I've been forced to see your junks underwater in those skintight wetsuits, I'm traumatized. I might never recover."

His trust issues and alcohol dependency were among the main topics during his sessions with Doctor Holmberg, but it wasn't like he would tell that to his kidnappers. Not that they were now even listening to him.

"Hold his face up a little more," directed the photographer, his red mustache waggling along with his enthusiasm, and Tony's head was pulled forcibly back by one of the goons. "I've got so many good shots of him already and we haven't yet even reached the base."

"I've always been photogenic," Tony let out a weak cough.

"If you keep on annoying us, you won't be for long," said Gregory, adjusting his grip on his rifle. "Some of us are just looking for an excuse to punch your face in."

"Only some of you?" Tony tsked, shaking his head. "Sounds like I need to improve my routine."

The punch in the face made his nose bleed again.

"Tough audience," he muttered sourly at his shoeless feet, as Henson ordered the group to start moving again.

For the rest of the short trek Tony kept his mouth firmly shut because every time he opened it, his nose kept bleeding into his mouth. There was an metallic taste in his mouth and, based on the photographer walking backwards in front of him and the constant clicking sound of the camera, he had to look quite "dramatic" with his drenched appearance, with blood on his face, his body bare and muddy with cuts here and there, his quality trousers torn and spoilt (his tailor would have gotten a heart attack had he known).

They seemed to be heading towards an abandoned house by the shore – the only building in sight – but Tony suspected that the run-down building was more of a disguise for their final destination than their destination itself, their destination being the headquarters, the hiding place of "The Salivating Scorpions" as his kidnappers apparently called themselves. Tony nevertheless studied the building and its surroundings carefully, memorizing all the details in case he could find a way to contact FRIDAY and have her try to locate them by the description, as little as there was to go by.

Back in the day the house might have been a home to a family, but now its roof had partially collapsed under its own weight and what remained of the white paint was falling off. Several windows were broken, on one window the remains of curtains were fluttering like a sad memory of the happier times the house perhaps had seen in its time. The yard was uncared-for, the flagpole covered with a thick layer of something green and yellow the ocean must have been throwing at it for years.

Tony took it all in with a bit of a glance here, another there, but what really caught his attention was the stone well that stood stoutly between the house and the flagpole, partially hidden from his view by some kind of a bush – plants weren't really Tony's area of expertise. Plants might not have been his thing, but engineering certainly was. Tony could well spot a holding structure when he saw one and, therefore, even from the distant, he could tell that the stone well didn't fit in with the rest of the property. Sure, there had been an attempt to make it look as if it, too, was in poor condition, but when you looked past the few loose rocks and the cracking layer of mortar someone had recently applied there for show, there was the undeniably solid structure, the perfect proportions, the work of relatively good engineering.

The well, Tony decided, was their destination. There was likely some kind of an underground compound – or a prison for him – built under it and that's where they were heading to.

It worried Tony that his kidnappers were making no efforts to prevent him from taking in the details of his surroundings. It was as if they didn't care if he knew where their hiding place was and that likely implied either that they weren't planning on letting him leave their destination alive or that they expected him to use the information somehow for _their_ gain. It was, of course, also possible that they wouldn't stay here for long or that they were, for some reason, trying to give Tony the impression that this was their hiding place, while in truth it was somewhere else.

In any case, there was no way it wasn't intentional – these were, after all, the same people who had managed to abduct him from his own bedroom, right from under the nose of FRIDAY, Rhodes and Vision. They were intelligent, they were organized, they were dangerous.

Perhaps, Tony mused, it was all about an elaborate plan to try and lure Steve out of hiding, straight into their waiting arms: perhaps they would _let_ Tony figure out a way to contact his friends – Steve, they would assume – and then expect Tony to give Steve all the information he could so Steve would do his best to march right into the trap. If that was the case, Tony decided, they had another thing coming because Tony didn't do betrayal, closely acquainted though he was with it, and he would rather have his corpse rot with this uncared-for property than give the kidnappers anything they could use against his former friends.

Because his former friends might now hate him, might not give a shit about what would happen to him, and he might hate them in return, but that didn't mean…

It didn't mean…

 _The point_ was, Tony didn't want Steve to just go and die. Not because he cared, no no, but because… Well, just because. It wasn't like he needed to justify himself to anyone, he was Tony Stark, after all.

Now that Tony was fairly certain where they were taking him, it also became obvious to him that he needed to act and he needed to act _fast_ because once they would get him in the well, it would be all that more difficult for him to get out and escape. His best chance at escape was _right now_.

Tony considered the situation: He was outmatched, no question about it, and even if he managed to outrun all his eight kidnappers (which was unrealistic to even think about, shoes or no shoes, scorpion venom or no scorpion venom), where would he run? There was the Atlantic Ocean on one side and vast areas of nothing but open potato fields on the other. There would be bullets fired at him but no cover, and while the kidnappers wouldn't shoot to kill, they would aim for his legs and then they would catch him and then he'd be injured _as well as_ abducted.

He considered the possibility of taking cover in the rundown house, but before he managed to form but half a plan, Henson came to a stop, stopping the rest of the group with a raised hand.

Looking Tony up and down, Henson said, "Better tie him up. I reckon he's already planning his escape and The Salivating Scorpions do not take any chances."

Tony did put up a fight when they reached for him, but it was just one more or less disorientated man against a strong group, and even though he did manage to get a few punches and well-aimed kicks in, the kidnappers had the upper hand from the start. They tied him up with duct tape from armpits to ankles and even taped his cursing mouth shut, and by the time they were finished, Tony was almost as helpless and unable to move as he had been when the scorpion's venom had temporarily paralyzed him.

One of the men hoisted him over his shoulder, handing his rifle to Gregory whose lip Tony had managed to split, and so they continued on.

They came to a halt when they reached the stone well, proving Tony's earlier assumption of their destination. Tony was lowered onto the ground and two of the goons moved the cover of the well aside, revealing in process a deep, dark vertical tunnel that seemed to go on forever. There were barely noticeable steps on the walls of the well, barely more than slightly protruding pieces of rocks or slight cracks, just big enough for someone to place their foot in – inconspicuous, if you didn't know to look for them.

"Right," said Henson. "DT, JN – you go down first as we planned."

Gregory and one of the goons, a muscular guy with a bald head that shone in the morning sunlight, didn't need to be told twice. They went into the well and climbed down in an accustomed manner like climbing down wells was something they did daily – for all Tony knew, that was exactly what they did. While they disappeared into the darkness, a harness was put on Tony and a few minutes later he was being lowered into the well.

Gregory and the other guy – DT and JN as Henson had called them – were waiting for Tony at the bottom of the well, pointing at him with a flashlight. That deep down, the air was cool and dank and there was a powerful smell of earth all around them, the torch the only source of light. Despite of the circumstances, Tony was actually glad to get the harness off, squishing and uncomfortable as it was.

They waited in the torch light for the other kidnappers to climb down which they did, one by one, and as soon as they were all accounted for, Tony was hoisted up onto a shoulder yet again and they moved forward into a hallway Tony hadn't noticed before due to the darkness.

"Now," Henson said softly, "we must go greet The Scorpion."

"Hail to The Scorpion," the others whispered and the whisper seemed to echo in the darkness. "May Her venom never be diluted."

"May Her venom never be diluted," repeated Henson. "When the prisoner has been purified, the questioning shall begin."

Tony tried to convince himself that the shiver that ran down his spine was due to the cold.

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 _A/N: If you're still reading, please let me know so I have a reason to keep on writing. :)_


	4. Tony: The Purification

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews! They are what keeps me motivated._

 **WARNING: This chapter contains animal abuse.**

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The network of the various tunnels was like a maze. There were unexpected turns and several steer stairways that took them deeper and deeper underground, and Tony counted each step, made note of and memorized even the slightest of turns so he would be able to find his way back on his own, given the opportunity. He even approximated the angle of the various stairs to estimate how deep underground his captors had taken him.

By Tony's calculations, they were now walking beneath the ocean bed, which meant that the Atlantic Ocean was roaring right above them. If any one of the tunnels was to collapse, the water would come pouring into the maze and everyone underground would drown – and wasn't _that_ just the kind of realization that Tony needed when he was doing his best to keep calm and not outright panic where The Salivating Scorpions could see.

Tony suspected the men knew what he was doing. That's why they seemed to be taking a more complex route to The Scorpion, that's why they wouldn't let him walk on his own two feet but carried him around like a sack of potatoes – they were trying to make him disorientated and confused, to make it harder for him to try to memorize the way out. The thing was, though, that Tony wasn't a genius for nothing and therefore he was able to keep track of their seemingly aimless wanderings, if only just so.

The men's steps echoed in the otherwise silent tunnel and Tony's breathing sounded loud in his ears. It was pitch black and although the captors had flashlights, Tony was hanging upside down on someone's shoulder and couldn't therefore see much apart from his captor's muscular back. The chill of the stone walls made goosebumps rise on Tony's bare skin and the body heat he shared with the captor carrying him made him instinctively want to curl up closer to the man, unpleasant though it was to be in such close contact with someone who had _fucking kidnapped him_ , especially as the said person smelt of salty sea water and musky sweat. His uncomfortable position made him feel dizzy as the blood rushed to his head, and had his nose still been bleeding, he wouldn't have gotten enough air, taped shut as his mouth still was.

To keep the panic at bay, Tony filled his mind with pleasant thoughts even as he kept a careful track of where they were going: He thought of the dinner he had had with the Parkers the evening before in their charming little kitchen in the heart of their welcoming home. He thought of May's sparkling eyes, the way Peter had confided in him about the girl he fancied, how well – how seamlessly – Spiderman and Ironman were working together even after just a few months. Tony thought of Rhodes and Vision and his robots, he thought of FRIDAY. He thought of paradigms, new ways to improve the Stark Consoles, he thought of pear pudding…

Rhodes was already looking for him with FRIDAY's help, Tony kept reminding himself. They must have noticed by now that he hadn't made it to the hospital. They must have found the letter, the threat against Tony and Steve. So yes, Rhodes and Vision were now searching for him as was the security staff of the Stark Industries and quite likely a bunch of police officers and military personnel. Tony had, after all, information, skills and knowledge that couldn't be allowed to fall into enemy hands and Ross – among various other people Tony had met on many occasions over the years but couldn't remember the names of – would not be sleeping peacefully until Tony Stark's location was known and the man himself was escorted safely back to his tower.

Eventually their small group came to a halt, which shook Tony out of his thoughts. No sooner had they stopped than Henson was already giving orders.

"FS, DT – you two light up the lanters," Henson's low voice sounded loud and eager in the darkness. "ML, set the prisoner down on the altar and make sure he stays on it. I'll go get Snuffles from the storage room, I'll be right back."

The African-American man carrying Tony – ML – let out a grunt of acknowledgement and soon Tony was being lowered onto a smooth stone surface, the altar. None too gently, ML ripped the tape off Tony's mouth and Tony, grimacing, pursed his lips, sticky from the tape, and opened and closed his mouth, trying to regain the normal feel to his lips.

"My disappearance must already be trending on Twitter," he said, slowly moving his jaw from side to side. "I'm insulted if it's not on TopTrends WORLDWIDE."

(He hoped his disappearance wouldn't affect the stocks of the Stark Industries. After the events in Siberia, Tony had concentrated his energy on his company, which had had a considerable positive effect on their already high stock prices. Tony had even made an effort to participate in the meetings, which had made Pepper so happy with him that she had actually told him she was proud of him.)

A sudden flash of a camera blinded him and Tony, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, tried to instinctively raise his hands to protect his eyes only to be met with the restraints of the duct tape. With bright spots dancing behind his closed lids, Tony hated how helpless he was, how passively he was forced to respond to everything that happened around him. Yet, he plastered a grin on his face and forced his burning eyes open to meet the photographer's critical gaze.

"Do you want my good side?" he asked the man, turning his face to the right to show off his profile, before turning his face to the left to show off the other side of his face. "Or my better side?"

The photographer didn't answer, just kept taking the photos, and Tony rolled his eyes with an exaggerated sigh.

The altar was hard beneath him, cold and unforgiving against his back. Tony fidgeted, trying in vain to loosen the duct tape holding his limbs together making him immobile. ML was standing on guard by his side and would have likely injured Tony had Tony actually managed to free himself, but that didn't mean Tony couldn't fidget a little, did it.

"Can you bring the lanterns a bit closer, Johnson?" asked the photographer and the bald man who had earlier been the first to climb down the well with Gregory did as he was asked, bringing three of the lanterns near the altar. "I want to take as many photos of him as I can before the purification, but that doesn't mean I will let the quality suffer."

The mentions of "purification" – whatever it was that the men meant by that – sounded ominous to Tony's ear, and he really, really did _not_ want to find out what the purification was all about, of that he was certain.

When FS and DT – Gregory, as Tony still thought of the big man – had managed to lit up several more lanterns, Tony could take his first glance around. They were in a round enclosure about the size of his bedroom, but unlike in his bright comfortable bedroom with several large windows, the walls in this enclosure seemed to almost be edging all the while closer and closer to each other, as if they could hardly wait to crush Tony in between them. The were at least five tunnel openings that Tony could see in the light of the lanterns, leading into the enclosure, but apart from the granite altar on which Tony was lying, there didn't seem to be any artifacts.

"Cozy place you've got here," he said. "Very down-to-earth."

"Thanks," said Gregory without an ounce of humor. "It was a lot of work."

"What kind of ventilation system design did you go for?" Tony couldn't help but ask. "Side suction system? Is compressed air energy storage your thing?"

"You ask too many questions," said ML with audible suspicion. "What are you planning?"

"An escape," Tony admitted because, honestly, wasn't that obvious? "Isn't that obvious? I'm _not_ planning on staying here for too long, you know. Don't get me wrong, Mole – can I call you Mole, it goes well with ML – I appreciate the effort you've made to make my stay comfortable, but earthly design was never really my thing. I'm more of a flashy kind of guy – made for the stars more so than living underground like mole people."

"The sooner you tell us where to find your friend, the sooner we will let you leave," said Mole. "It's your friend The Scorpion wants, not you."

"Meh," Tony did his best to shrug despite of the restraints, "perhaps I like it here after all."

Hell would freeze over before he would tell them a thing about Steve's location.

It was only a few minutes later when Henson came back from wherever it was that he had gone off to. He was carrying a small fluffy dog – a golden retriever puppy, Tony saw as the pair came closer. The puppy was sniffling Henson's nose and kept giving the man fond licks in the chin and Henson returned the affection by scratching the puppy behind the ear and speaking to it in a soft voice.

Henson stopped by Gregory, taking a hold of one of the puppy's front paws and waving with it at the stern-looking man.

"Say hi to papa, Snuffles," Tony heard Henson saying and watched as Gregory gave the puppy a few pats on the head.

"This is Snuffles," Henson said, stepping close enough for Tony to see the puppy clearly, while the rest of the men gathered silently around the altar to watch on. "My husband's dog gave birth to seven puppies and this is one of them. Isn't she adorable? Say hi to our prisoner, Snuffles."

Henson lowered the puppy onto Tony's chest and, after a moment of hesitation, the puppy took a cautious sniff at Tony's mouth. The smell of wet fur filled Tony's nostrils, but while it wasn't the most pleasant smell he could have thought of, he didn't pay it any mind. Instead, he was quickly overcome by trepidation and wanted to tell the puppy to _run, run, run, get the hell away from here_ ; for whatever reason Henson had brought the dog in the dark underground facility – a place unsuitable for such a lively animal – it couldn't have been for anything good.

The puppy gave Tony's bloody face a few friendly little licks and then kept on sniffing him, letting out pitiful yelps as if she was equally worried for Tony's condition as Tony was for her.

"Snuffles seems to like him," Gregory observed from where he was now standing at the foot of the altar with his bulgy arms crossed on his wide chest. "Snuffles has accepted him – looks like it's a suitable match."

"Good," said Henson, picking up the puppy and holding her carefully in his arms. Looking down at Tony, he explained, "Like children of all species, Snuffles is an innocent being. As she has accepted you, we can use her innocence to purify you of your sins – you must be thankful to her for her sacrifice."

And it hit Tony like a lightning.

It was sick. It was absolutely sick. These people were sick.

They were going to kill the puppy.

"You better not hurt that puppy," he told them. "You really don't need to do it, okay? Seriously, don't do it."

He tried to get up, but suddenly there were several pairs of strong hands holding him forcefully in place.

Tony felt like throwing up when he caught the glimmer of a knife in Gregory's hand. Henson handed the puppy over to Gregory, kissing the top of her head and muttering "good girl" in her ear. The other men made room for Gregory as he stepped to lean over Tony, holding the puppy by the scruff of her neck above Tony's belly.

"Oh, great Scorpion," Gregory then spoke. "Please take our sacrifice and purify this man of his plentiful sins."

"Hail to The Scorpion!" exclaimed Henson and the other men immediately echoed, "Hail to The Scorpion!"

"You people are sick!" Tony cried, looking in horror from the knife to the oblivious puppy.

"May Her venom never be diluted," said Gregory and then, then he raised the knife up to the puppy's throat – and sliced it open.

A loud, terrified yelp of pain echoed in the tunnels and warm blood gushed on Tony's belly, on his chest, on his face, as Gregory moved the struggling puppy slowly above Tony so Tony's body was showered in her blood. The pungent smell of iron was all around him, he was bathed in warm blood while the men around the altar hummed some kind of a mantra, holding him still. Tony closed his eyes and turned his face away when Gregory sliced Snuffles again, this time in her belly, but her cries were impossible to block out, they were as loud in Tony's ears as the sound of his pounding heart – yet, the sudden silence that followed the cries felt even louder.

Gregory put the puppy's lifeless body on Tony's legs and then he backed away from the altar, while the rest of the group kept on humming.

"Now that the innocent blood has been shed and an innocent life has been sacrificed," said Henson, "it is your turn, Mighty Scorpion, to come complete this man's purification!"

Despite of all the blood, Tony cracked an eye open. Some of the blood immediately went to his eye and it _smarted_ , but he didn't close the eye, just blinked to clear his vision. His pulse fast, he scanned the room, not sure of what he was expecting to see. A woman in green? Some kind of a super villain?

In any case, what he saw was not what he had been expecting:

The shadows near one of the tunnel openings began to move and soon, yes, far too soon, Tony could see the form of a giant green scorpion that was watching them in silence from the shadows with its eight black eyes, each the size of a grown man's hand. Apart from its considerably larger size and black eyes, The Scorpion looked similar to the glass figurine Tony had found on his nightstand. Most notably, this scorpion, too, looked with its transparent form like it had been made of green glass.

For a creature bigger than the average delivery van, The Scorpion could move surprisingly fast with its eight legs. It scuttled across the room in an instant and almost as soon as Tony had first noticed it, it was looming over him, snapping its huge claws like two guillotines.

His mouth suddenly dry, Tony swallowed hard, staring first at the claws, then moving his gaze up to the tail with the stung, and _god_ , that thing was _massive_ , the tail alone easily the size of Thor. If a small glass scorpion had temporarily paralyzed him with its venom, what could a glass scorpion of this size do to him?

Tony wasn't sure if he even wanted to know.

As he watched on helplessly and with a growing sense of horror, The Scorpion climbed up onto the altar.

Later, Tony would have nightmares of the way The Scorpion now slurped the puppy's blood off him. He would remember what its mouth felt like on his tightly shut eyes, on his ear, on his throat. He would never forget how The Scorpion carefully ingested all of the puppy's blood and how it then – when there was no more blood to be had – ate the puppy, crunching the frail bones with little difficulty. In his nightmares, Tony would remember the sounds he heard when The Scorpion grasped the puppy with its claws and tore the flesh. He would remember all that and even more, but while it happened, it was all he could do to not throw up and all he could think of was how much he loved Rhodey who had made him take the tetanus shot.

Afterwards, when The Scorpion was done, it climbed off the altar and went back to the shadows, its pace slower now that its hunger had been satisfied.

The men stopped humming when The Scorpion's scuttling could no longer be heard.

"Praise to The Scorpion," said Henson. "The prisoner has been purified."

"Actually I'm now way dirtier than before," Tony forced himself to put in, despite of his nausea, despite of how repulsed and horrified he felt. "Let me take a bath – or just a quick shower – and I promise I'll be like a walking flower afterwards. Or a walking apple, if you prefer. Do you prefer apples? Some people do. I'm more of a vanilla guy, if I'm honest, but _only_ when it comes to body wash, if you know what I mean."

"Praise to The Scorpion," the other men were saying instead of listening to Tony and Tony tried not to feel insulted. "May Her venom never be diluted."

"May Her venom never be diluted," said Henson with a nod. "Now, then, I believe it is the time to begin the questioning."

"Oh, by the way," Tony said as Gregory moved in to cut the duct tape off him with the bloody knife, "on behalf of Snuffles, _fuck you_."

* * *

They filmed the questioning. There was an old-fashioned video camera on a holder in front of Tony, recording every move he made, every flinch, every glare, every curse he spat at his captors.

They hit him when he didn't answer their questions about his "hiding friend".

First they were mere slaps in the face, but later Mole picked up a few broken pieces of cords from the corner of the room, where they had various other things lying around – thermal insulation tape, toilet paper, canisters – and Tony could only assume that either they were planning on using those unconventional things for torture, or the room was working as both an interrogation room and storage room – and handed them over to Gregory who then tied the cords together to use as a whip.

Gregory and Mole took turns in whipping and hitting Tony and Tony bit his lower lip bloody to not make a sound.

He told them nothing – nothing about Wakanda, nothing about Steve, nothing about his former friends – and eventually Gregory grew so impatient with him that he wrapped the cord whip tightly around Tony's throat and began to strangle him.

"If you insist on being silent," Gregory hissed in his ear, "why don't I silence you for good?"

In the end, Gregory didn't silence him for good, but he did leave the cord, tight, around Tony's throat when the men eventually dragged Tony - gasping and trying not to shed any tears of pain - out of the room into the pitch black tunnel.

This time they didn't drag him far, only some twenty yards, before they came to a stop in front of solid metal bars. Looking pass the bars, Tony saw a small room half full of potatoes.

"This is our potato cellar," said Henson in his jovial manner. "All potatoes are from our own fields and you are free to eat them. Unfortunately we don't yet have all that many areas ready for hosting guests, so this will have to do. My Dearest was kind enough to attach the bars when I requested it of him. My Dearest is so handy."

Henson opened the door and Gregory and Mole pushed Tony forcefully into his new cell. Tony stumbled, unable to steady himself in time, and fell onto the potatoes with a painful "oomph".

"One more potato among the potatoes," was Mole's idea of a joke. "I hope the ground won't be too lumpy for you, Stark."

"Why is he constantly speaking when I don't want him to," grumbled Gregory in his humorless manner, glaring at Tony from under his dark hair, "but the moment I ask him a question he snaps his mouth shut and refuses to utter a word?"

"I did utter many words," managed Tony in a voice hoarse from being strangled. "Swear words, granted, but still words, just the same."

"Shut up," said Gregory - this was apparently among the times he didn't want Tony to speak - slamming the cell door shut. Henson locked the door.

"I will leave this lantern here for you," Henson said and hung the smaller one of the two lanterns he was carrying on a nail on the wall opposite of Tony's cell. The lantern was too far for Tony to reach, but close enough to shed some light in the darkness. "It should keep The Scorpion away – Her Venomness can be a bit unpredictable when she meets lone people in the unlit tunnels, you see, and under normal circumstances I wouldn't mind, but we do need you to stay alive for a little while longer so we can please Her later."

"We will see you after lunch," Gregory said, and with a final glance at Tony, the captors left, their steps sounding gradually more and more distant in the silent tunnel, and Tony was left alone in his cell.

Now that Tony was alone, he allowed himself to let out a quiet sob, blinking the tears of pain and exhaustion from his eyes. With trembling fingers, he pried the cords off his neck and rubbed at his throat. He doubted there was any permanent damage done to him, but it had nevertheless been unpleasant to get strangled.

Sighing, Tony looked at the potato piles around him and hid the cords carefully under them. Potatoes were full of energy and now he had the cords – perhaps he could later use them to make a battery.

For what, that he didn't yet know.

But he did have ideas.

* * *

 _A/N: Tony, Tony, Tony... *shakes head slowly* This is only the beginning for you, you know._

 _Please let me know, if you would like to read more! :)_


	5. Peter: Of Footage and Images

_A/N: Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me along the way and sent me feedback! Special thanks to MagicWarriorDragon, gandalf537, Sekiya1997 and the two guests who took the time to review chapter 4! I really appreciate it.  
_

* * *

It was all over the news by morning.

 _The New York Times_ had live coverage on the kidnapping on their website and _The Wall Street Journal_ had a detailed but terribly dull analysis on how "Anthony Stark's kidnapping could affect the stock prices on a large scale." _Daily News_ published shaky footage of a helicopter leaving the Stark Tower the evening before and various other media sites speculated on who was behind the kidnapping and what their motives were.

With a weary sigh, Peter put his phone upside down on the table and ran a hand through his hair.

He had been woken up some time before two that morning by Aunt May who had told him to _get dressed now, Peter_ , because Mr. Stark had been kidnapped and the police wanted to have their statements of the evening's events as soon as possible.

"We need to go to the Stark Tower," Aunt May had said, pulling a brown worn-out sweater over her pink pajamas, apparently having grasped the first item of clothing at hand. Usually so careful about her appearances, she hadn't even taken the time to apply make-up. "Tony's CEO called me and she said that the faster we can make it there, the better. Tony needs us to be quick, Peter, so hurry."

It was now six AM and during the four hours Peter and Aunt May had spent in one of the offices in the lower levels of the Tower, they had had to answer detailed questions about the evening Mr. Stark had spent with them – and not only to the police, no. When the detectives had left, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes and Vision had come in to ask the exact same questions the detectives had asked and after the two of them, there had been private detectives of the Stark Industries and then military officers – particularly memorably, an angry general, who hadn't even bothered to introduce himself and hadn't been impressed when Peter had taken a quick glance at the time on his phone.

In Peter's defense, as soon as Aunt May had told him about Mr. Stark's kidnapping, he had hurried to put on his Spider-Man suit. He was now wearing it under his jeans and his hoodie with the mask carefully tucked into his pocket, ready for action – someone had abducted Mr. Stark and Spider-Man would give his all to bring him back home safely. Yet, instead of having been _out there_ looking for Mr. Stark, he had been stuck in an office with a man who kept asking him and Aunt May – in a rude manner – the same questions they had already answered many times.

But it wasn't like Peter could have just walked out, was it, not with all the police officers and generals needing to have his statement.

While the general had been demanding Aunt May to list all the ingredients she had used to make the dinner, Peter had tried to glance at the time on his phone as subtly as he had caught Mr. Stark doing on a few occasions. By then, it had been 5.24 AM and Mr. Stark had been missing for at least eight hours. Apparently Peter's attempt at being subtle with the phone hadn't been very good, however, because when he had raised his head, frustrated that Spider-Man hadn't yet done anything to help Mr. Stark even if Peter Parker was giving the search and rescue teams all the information he had, the general had been giving him a stern look.

"Is this conversation boring you, boy?" the general had asked with his grey mustache trembling, eyes sharp and intent on Peter's face.

"What? No!" Peter had been taken aback, suddenly unreasonably paranoid that the man had been able to read his thoughts about Spider-Man. "I was just… checking the time."

"So I won't be late," he had added lamely and finished with a whispered, "For school."

The general had given him a suspicious look, but eventually all he had said was, "Put the phone away, boy, and focus."

"I might tell you the same thing," Aunt May had stepped in, eyeing the general coolly. "Except instead of 'the phone', I would ask you to put your unnecessarily rude and aggressive behavior away. We are here to help, so you really don't need to treat us with an attitude like this."

And that had prompted the sputtering general to start demanding Aunt May to tell him if she and Mr. Stark were having "a sexual affair" and if she had "a jealous boyfriend who could have been behind the kidnapping" and she had answered every question with the same cool demeanor she usually only ever wore when she had a high hand on Poker but was trying to hide it.

After the general had finally left, it took a quarter of an hour for the next person to enter the office and Peter and Aunt May might have left before that hadn't the secretary sitting at his desk outside the door specifically asked them to wait for a while longer. As they waited, Peter checked the news before putting his phone upside down on the table and running a trembling hand through his hair.

It was six AM and their day was only just beginning.

Miss Potts, Mr. Stark's CEO, whom Peter had met a few times in passing, entered the room precisely fifteen minutes after the general had left, bringing with her the scents of freshly baked scones and strawberry tea. She put two mugs of steaming tea and a large plate full of scones down onto the table in front of Peter and Aunt May (whose pink pajamas collar was sticking out of the neckline of her sweater, but she didn't seem to notice and Peter didn't think to mention it to her – he had other things to worry about, namely, Mr. Stark).

"You must have missed breakfast," Miss Potts said by way of greeting. "I'm Virginia Potts, the CEO of the Stark Industries."

"Yes," Aunt May hastened to stand up to shake her hand, "we spoke on the phone earlier. Any news on Tony?"

"I'm afraid not," Miss Potts sighed and Aunt May's face fell as she took her seat in silence.

Still standing, Miss Potts pushed the scone plate towards Peter.

"You must be hungry, Mr. Parker," she said with a bit of a smile. "Boys your age usually are."

Peter wasn't hungry – how could he have been when Mr. Stark was missing! – but he had been raised to be polite and so he thanked Miss Potts and reached out dutifully to take one of the scones. The scone, fresh from the oven, warmed his fingers and Peter bit into the soft texture.

Miss Potts walked around the table and sat down on a chair opposite to their seats. She crossed her legs, looking composed and elegant in her grey blazer dress but for the air of almost tangible worry around her.

"I wanted to personally thank you for your co-operation," she said. "You have been very patient and I appreciate it as Mr. Stark's friend."

"We will, of course, do all we can to help him," Aunt May assured. "He is our friend too, after all."

Miss Potts blinked before narrowing her eyes and looking Aunt May slowly up and down as if to assess whether she was good enough friend-material for Mr. Stark. Eventually she offered a tense smile and said, "One can never have too many friends."

"Indeed," said Aunt May, eyeing Miss Potts now in an equally critical manner, while Peter attempted to eat his scone.

"It appears," Miss Potts said after a while, folding her hands on the table, "that Mr. Stark has given you both a rather high security clearance status when it comes to the matters of his personal life. There were – should I say – _very specific_ instructions that you two should not be kept in the dark if he was to get injured, killed or, as the case now is, abducted. You are also on the list of the very few people allowed to visit him in the hospital without having to clear it first with his next of kin, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes."

Peter had, of course, been already aware of all that because Mr. Stark had been the one to tell him about it. His clearance status as Spider-Man was even higher.

"It's just a precaution," Mr. Stark had said in a nonchalant manner, though his eyes had been serious. "One day you might be in a situation where you have to get information as Peter Parker to help Spider-Man and this is my way of making things easier for you."

"Of course," Mr. Stark had added, turning his face away to look out of the window, "if something was to happen to me, I would… appreciate it, if you and May would come to see me once or twice, whether by a hospital bed or by a grave. If you had the time, of course - I don't mean to make you feel like you'd _had to_ come, Peter, I'm just saying that I'd appreciate it if you wanted to. Come see me, that is."

Then Mr. Stark had twirled around and clapped his hands together, all gloominess forgotten.

"You must remember to look surprised when they tell you about your clearance," he had said, "so it'll come across as something eccentric I would do on a spur of a moment rather than anything that would raise suspicions about you, especially regarding any spider-related things. That's why I'm giving May a higher status, too - to make it look like it's one of my whims, something I'd do for my new friends because I like them, but not because they're secretly superheroes or anything."

They had then gone to stand in front of a mirror in the hallway, where they had together made all kinds of faces in an attempt to come up with "a believably surprised expression". It had been fun and they had both been laughing by the time Peter had managed to perfect his "believably surprised expression".

Now that Peter forced the "believably surprised expression" on his face in all seriousness, there was nothing fun about it, although he could almost hear the echo of Mr. Stark's laughter in his mind.

"Because of Mr. Stark's instructions," Miss Potts continued, frowning down at her folded hands, "I will now do as he wishes and fill you in on the current situation. I can only trust Mr. Stark's judgement of you when I ask you to not go to the press or to talk about these matters with anyone outside this room, as that might further endanger Mr. Stark."

"We wouldn't purposefully put Tony in danger," Aunt May's tone was sharp. "As I said, he _is_ our friend and he must consider us his friends in turn since he has shown us this level of trust."

Miss Potts inclined her head in acknowledgement, but Peter had the feeling that she was still rather reluctant to share any information with them. He couldn't blame her - she didn't even know them and Mr. Stark likely hadn't told her about their security clearance status beforehand. She must have indeed gotten the impression that it was the result of something Mr. Stark had done on a whim without thinking the consequences through.

"First of all," Miss Potts nevertheless began, "there are now marines searching the area of Mr. Stark's last known location – which just happens to be a spot right above the Atlantic Ocean, not too far from New York City – but so far they have found nothing."

"We got the coordinates to Mr. Stark's last known location from Mr. Stark's AI, FRIDAY," she explained before neither Peter nor Aunt May had had the time to ask. "According to her data, the people responsible for taking him threw quite a lot of his possessions into the ocean."

Peter's mouth went dry and Aunt May wrung her hands, as she tended to do when she felt particularly anxious over something.

"You don't think-" Aunt May began, giving Peter a worried glance, "I mean, Miss Potts… You don't think that they… that Mr. Stark ended up in the water, too?"

Miss Potts unfolded her hands and put her palms flat down on the table.

"There's no evidence to suggest that Mr. Stark would have ended up in the water," she said carefully and Aunt May raised a hand to her heart.

"Thank god," she said softly and Peter saw her closing her eyes.

"However," Miss Potts continued and Aunt May's eyes snapped open at her sinister tone, "there's no evidence to suggest that he didn't, either."

A silence fell in the room. Peter put the partly-eaten scone down onto the plate, losing what little there had been left of his appetite.

"In any case, it isn't quite clear whether-" Miss Potts cut herself off, her mouth tightening into a thin line. She tucked a loose strand of red hair behind her ear, and while her face was one of cool professionalism, Peter saw the tremble of her hand. When she eventually spoke, her voice was soft but steady, "As I was saying, there is no certainty that Mr. Stark was even still alive when he was taken from the Tower. It is not yet clear if we are looking for him or just for his body."

Aunt May covered her mouth with her hand, but Peter could only stare at Miss Potts.

"What do you mean?" his voice came out as a whisper.

Giving Peter a sympathetic look, Miss Potts filled Peter and Aunt May in on the way Mr. Stark had found a scorpion figurine on his nightstand and how the figurine had later stung him, seemingly stopping his heart and his breathing. At some point as Miss Potts had been speaking, Aunt May had moved her chair closer to Peter's and her arms were now around him, but Peter barely felt them, his heart pounding in his ears.

"FRIDAY could not detect any vital signs," Miss Potts explained and Peter felt suddenly so dizzy that he had to lean forward in the chair and put his head in his hands, not willing to accept that Mr. Stark – awesome, fun, cool, clever, understanding Mr. Stark – might have been gone from his life for good.

Aunt May was rubbing his back and Miss Potts hurried to continue, her voice sounding faraway to Peter's ear, "Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes _insists_ that Mr. Stark was alive when the men took him away. He has suggested that the scorpion's venom was some kind of a paralyzing drug and FRIDAY is already running various analysis, but it can take up to weeks before we get any answers."

"What do you know of the suspects?" Peter said when he had managed to compose himself, rubbing a hand over his mouth. "Do you have any footage of them?"

"We do," said Miss Potts. "The security camera footage on the landing pad shows the pilot and the two men who came here with the pretense of being paramedics trying to help Mr. Stark. FRIDAY is currently working on the facial recognition. We haven't yet released the footage to the public, but we do consider it."

"What do they want?" asked Peter, referring to the people behind the kidnapping. "Have there been any demands?"

This time Miss Potts wouldn't answer his questions, claiming that the answers were above their security clearance status.

Peter and Aunt May didn't stay in the Tower for too long after that, even though Miss Potts offered to take them to a guest room, where they could rest.

"I must take Peter home," Aunt May declined politely, her arms around Peter. "He… looks up to Tony. They like each other. Please, Miss Potts, have someone call us when you find him."

"I will call you myself," she promised.

Later, when Peter and Aunt May were back at home, sitting at the kitchen table in silence with an untouched cereal bowl in front of Peter and an equally untouched bowl of granola in front of Aunt May, their gazes were inevitably drawn to the empty chair, the chair on which Mr. Stark had been sitting the evening before.

"You don't need to go to school today, Peter," Aunt May said with a sniff. Her eyes were red-rimmed like she had been crying, but the gentle hand she put on Peter's neck was a promise of support and strength – _I would take all the hardship on your behalf if I could_ , it seemed to say. "I can call Principal Simmons and explain the situation. I could take the day off and stay here with you."

Peter shook his head. He had to go look for Mr. Stark and pretending to go to school would give him many hours to do so without raising Aunt May's suspicion.

"No," he therefore said, his voice hoarse. Clearing his throat, he quickly gave an excuse, "I'd rather go to school and get something to occupy my mind with. Otherwise I'll just mope around, worrying."

Aunt May gave his neck a reassuring squeeze before she pulled her hand back.

"I understand," she said and he felt terribly guilty for lying to her yet again, "but call me any time and I'll come get you home."

"Thanks, Aunt May, I will," said Peter, knowing that he never would.

* * *

An hour later in the Stark Tower, Spider-Man stood in front of Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes and Vision and told them that he was there to help them to find Mr. Stark, that he would give his all to bring Mr. Stark back home.

He meant every word.

* * *

They received the first photos of Mr. Stark precisely at 10.23 AM when a tiny transparent scorpion brought an envelope to them up to the penthouse, carrying it carefully in its claws. Peter didn't waste any time in shooting web from his wrist at the figurine-like creature and so they managed to catch it alive and without breaking it – it felt like the first step forward they had taken since Mr. Stark's capture.

"Well done, man," said Rhodes, giving Peter a clap in the back. "Nice reflexes."

"Thanks!" Peter said, feeling taller all of a sudden. He was quite pleased for having caught the scorpion and his first instinct was to look around to see Mr. Stark's reaction, but his moment of triumph disappeared as soon as it had come when he realized that Mr. Stark obviously wasn't there.

Rhodes and Vision were already leaning over the glass figurine and, cautiously, Peter stepped closer as well, studying what little he could see of its form, covered in web as it was. It had to be similar to the one Mr. Stark had encountered earlier, Peter decided. Before he had shot the web at the scorpion, Peter had seen it clearly, down to the very last detail, due to his heightened senses and it had looked similar to the one pictured in the letter Rhodes and Vision had shown him.

Peter's fists clenched as if of their own accord when he recalled the contents of the letter.

 _Where is SR, your ever so loyal friend? You may tell him that hiding is_  
 _as useless as his efforts to "do good"._  
 _We are hungry and we are coming._  
 _We are salivating for blood._  
 _Whose shall it be?_  
 _His?_  
 _Or yours?_  
 _That depends entirely on you, Anthony Stark._

It felt horrible, absolutely horrible that someone would write to Mr. Stark like that! Reading the letter had made Peter angry and he was now even more determined to find Mr. Stark and the people responsible for his abduction.

"Perhaps I should be the one to take it for the analysis," suggested Vision, shaking Peter out of his dark musings. Vision tilted his head slightly, observing both Peter and Rhodes. "I do believe I could stand its venom better than you two, if it managed to sting one of us."

"No," said Rhodes sharply. "We will use a dustpan to put it into a box with a good lid on it and then we'll take it for the analysis _together_. I'm not leaving anyone alone with that thing for a second. FRIDAY, find out how the glass scorpion managed to get in, will you."

"Very well, James Rhodes," came FRIDAY's answer. "I will assist you in finding Boss in any way I can."

They put their plan in motion: Three pairs of eyes focused their attention on the glass scorpion placed in a transparent box, as they made their way into Laboratory 4. FRIDAY was quick to confirm that this scorpion was similar to the one Mr. Stark had encountered earlier and then she scanned the letter the scorpion had brought for them, presented to her by Rhodes, who had taken it from the scorpion's grasp with tongs, careful to not get too close to its stung, just in case it would still manage to move despite of the web.

While FRIDAY began an analysis on the material the scans had given her, Rhodes put on latex gloves and carefully cut the envelope open with a letter knife. There was a memory card in it and Rhodes slipped it into the nearest memory card reader.

"Check out what's in that thing," he advised FRIDAY, "and mind any viruses."

"I always do," sighed FRIDAY and, after a heartbeat, added, "It appears that there are three hundred and fourteen data files in the memory card, most of them image files, although there is at least one video file as well. The data file sizes vary from 106k to 811Mt."

"Put them up, starting from the latest files," said Rhodes, squaring his shoulders as if preparing for a battle.

The lights dimmed automatically when FRIDAY lit up one of the walls, and despite of the circumstances, Peter's heart jumped a little and he had to yet again be impressed by Stark-tech – the wall had looked like an ordinary white laboratory wall up till the moment it had turned into a dark screen.

The latest file in the memory card was the video file.

"Play it," said Rhodes and FRIDAY did.

* * *

Peter tried, he really did. He didn't want to let Mr. Stark down and so he _tried_. He tried to stand there between Vision and Rhodes and watch the video.

They watched as Mr. Stark smirked straight at the camera before raising his gaze to look at someone standing behind it.

" _A little too 1990's, don't you think?"_ he quipped with a raised eyebrow, gesturing at the camera with his head. _"If you untie me, I can build you a better one with the stuff I can find in this room. Tell you what, let's make it more challenging and say that I can only use the things I can find on this side of the room. Or only the things that are blue. You decide."_

The people behind the kidnapping had tied Mr. Stark onto a chair and he kept fidgeting on the rocky chair as if he couldn't find a comfortable position, which he quite likely couldn't. His hair was a mess, sticking out at odd angles, and his bare chest and arms had various cuts, though none too deep-looking, thankfully. He was shivering and his trousers were drenched and torn and muddy, and he looked like he had been through a lot since his capture, but his smirk never once wavered as he studied the people behind the camera.

"At least this proves that he wasn't dead when they took him," Rhodes said, relief audible in his voice even as his jaw was clenched, as he took in the state of his friend. "And now we also know that they didn't dump him into the ocean."

"It does look like they did 'dump' him into the ocean," put in Vision, eyeing Mr. Stark's drenched trousers, "but I'm glad to note that they didn't leave him there."

" _Before we begin,"_ spoke a voice unfamiliar to Peter from behind the camera, _"I want you to know that you can end this at any time."_

"That's one of the paramedics that took Tony," Rhodes noted instantly, crossing his arms on his chest, "the smaller one. I recognize his voice."

Peter had seen the security footage, Rhodes had shown it to him, and he remembered the two men who had carried Mr. Stark into the helicopter. The shorter one's hair had been fair, he recalled, and he had worn glasses, while the taller paramedic had had dark hair and a demeanor that had reminded Peter of the cave troll in Harry Potter.

" _All you need to do,"_ the shorter paramedic continued, _"is to tell us where to find your friend."_

" _Sounds simple enough,"_ said Tony who had tilted his head slightly and was now pursing his lips as if considering the matter in earnest, _"but how about we make the rules a bit more interesting, yeah? I go to the tunnels, while you count to ten. Then you shout 'Marco' and I – might or might not – shout 'Polo' back at you."_

The first punch startled Peter more than it seemed to startle Mr. Stark. Peter stared with wide eyes as Mr. Stark moved his jaw from side to side before making a remark about "the importance of learning to give criticism in a constructive manner."

The man who had punched Mr. Stark was now standing in full view of the camera with a black commando mask covering his face.

"That's the bigger paramedic," said Rhodes through clenched teeth. "And for the record, he'll pay for what he just did."

"Indeed," said Vision, sounding distraught. "I wish I had followed my instincts – I should have gone with him."

Rhodes never took his eyes off the video.

"You couldn't have known. Neither one of us did. Don't blame yourself."

" _Where is your friend hiding?"_ the taller paramedic was demanding, but as he was only given a blank stare as an answer, he soon hit Mr. Stark in the face again. Flinching, Peter squeezed his eyes shut just as the fist hit its target. He heard a stifled gasp and the "fuck you" Mr. Stark spat at the man who had hit him.

Peter clenched his fists. He wished he could have been there for Mr. Stark.

" _It's a simple enough question,"_ came a new voice and another tall kidnapper stepped into view, _"but it does require a simple answer: where can we find your friend?"_

Mr. Stark sat with his head held high, but he didn't say a thing apart from quite a lot of cursing, and they hit him again, and again, and again, and again, and he couldn't even raise his arms to protect himself, and Peter couldn't watch it, he _tried to keep on watching_ , he really did, he tried so hard for Mr. Stark's sake, tried to take some of his pain if only like this, if only via a video, but when the men began to hit Mr. Stark with broken cords, tears filled Peter's eyes and he had to turn his face away.

"They need to stop," he heard himself saying. "Stop it! STOP IT!"

But they didn't.

"Perhaps it would be best, if you waited outside," Vision said gently, laying a hand on Peter's arm. "You are young; you shouldn't be here. We will go through the files, while you can try to sooth your mind. Perhaps with some chamomile tea?"

"Thank you, Vision," Peter sniffed, very much shaken but determined, "but no. I do need to stay. I can't leave Mr. Stark, not like this."

"He wouldn't mind," Vision insisted. "I believe he would actually prefer it, if you didn't see him in the state he is in the video recording."

"Yeah, well," Peter sniffed again and the mask – designed to instantly evaporate any extra sweat – dried his tears as soon as they rolled down his cheeks, "Mr. Stark's wishes are now secondary to his needs and he _does_ need me to take a look at the files. I might notice something important."

Despite of his words, when the taller paramedic suddenly wrapped the cords around Mr. Stark's throat and began to _strangle_ him, Peter had to turn his back to the screen and put his hands on his ears. He couldn't, couldn't, _couldn't_ look at Mr. Stark gasping for air, struggling to breathe, and he felt dizzy with tears flowing down his cheeks in earnest now, even if the mask didn't leave any traces of them.

Peter couldn't know how the video would end and so he feared that there would be a body at the end of it, he feared that Mr. Stark's eyes would lose their sparkle and turn into dull voids of nothing. He couldn't bear to see it, he couldn't bear to even think of it.

When the video ended – with Mr. Stark still thankfully alive by the end of it – silence fell in the laboratory. It was eventually broken by Vision, who asked for FRIDAY to show them the rest of the files. FRIDAY instantly complied, filling the wall-sized screen with hundreds of photos of Mr. Stark.

Mr. Stark on his knees with rifles pointed at his head giving the camera a smile so bright his white teeth seemed to shine, Mr. Stark covered in mud and blood with a black boot stepping onto his back, Mr. Stark being held underwater with pure terror in his eyes, Mr. Stark lying on some kind of an altar, wrapped in duct tape, covered from head to toe with red blood…

No-one spoke. Vision was staring at the photos from afar, hovering in the air, visibly tormented, moving his gaze steadily from one photo to the next, while Rhodes paced in front of the screen, moving even with the help of his leg braces more clumsily than usual, making distressed noises at some of the photos. Peter, for his part, did his best to study the photos in case he happened to see something that could give them a clue to Mr. Stark's location, but it was a battle against nausea, one that he soon lost.

Having lift the mask in time but only just so that it revealed his mouth, Peter threw up in a dustbin with his back to Vision and Rhodes.

He was, after all, only a schoolboy – superhero or not – and he wasn't used to seeing torture, especially not done to someone he cared for and looked up to.

Vision filled a glass from the sink and brought it to Peter, turning his face tactfully away to respect Peter's wish to keep his identity a secret, and Peter thanked him, both for the water and for his consideration, taking a sip to rinse the bitter taste of vomit away.

"Fuck," Rhodes was swearing, seeming to speak more to himself than to Peter and Vision. "This is too much, way too much. I'll make the damn phone call! At this point, I don't care if Tony wouldn't want me to."

When Peter turned around, having masked his face again, Rhodes had a flip phone on his ear and a murderous look on his face.

" _No_ , this is _not_ Tony," Rhodes hissed when someone apparently answered the call, "and don't _you_ fucking 'Tony' him – you've lost the right, jerk face. It's James Rhodes speaking, and you better listen closely or _I swear_ I'll call Ross the minute you hang up and I'll tell him you're hiding in Wakanda. Yes, I know where you are, but that's not the point. The point _is_ that you did all you could to save your best friend – and now I'm going to do the exact same thing for mine."

* * *

 _A/N: Oh Peter..._

 _Feel free to share your thoughts with me, hint hint. ;)  
_


	6. Steve: Regrets

_A/N: Thank you to Cael05, Rosesroses25, MagicWarriorDragon, Guest of honor, KateWalkerTheSuperherolover, stony4life, Fawkes83, Katdog27, Alethea 13, mrcowsaysmoo, gandalf537 and the two guests for reviewing the chapter 5 and thank you also to_ _O smrt1 who sent me a private message! Your feedback is much appreciated._

* * *

With his sweaty hair plastered to his neck, Steve stood under the burning Wakandan Sun and scraped paint off a shed. He had been at it since lunch and before darkness would fall, he knew, he would paint the shed with the exact same shade of brown he was now scraping off of it. The next day, the brown paint would be mostly dry, again, and Steve would scrape it off, again.

There were no punching bags durable enough for Steve in their Wakandan compound, and while T'Challa was a generous host, Steve was loath to ask the man for anything more than he and his people had already been given, as the king was doing so much for them as it was. Despite of his hesitancy to ask for more, Steve _needed_ something to occupy his hands with, needed something with a monotony and physical grind, needed something to distract himself from the swell of emotions that made it almost impossible for him to sleep at night, so he made do with the scraping, venting his grief on the innocent shed.

Grief was a peculiar thing.

When mom had died, Bucky had been there for him, giving him every day so many reasons to keep on going that Steve had moved on almost without even noticing it, even though he, of course, had still mourned for her like any son would mourn for their beloved mother.

When Bucky had fallen off the train, there had been the ongoing war which had forced Steve's thoughts elsewhere, and - more importantly - there had been the strong sweet Peggy, the love of Steve's life, whispering promises in his heart, comforting him, telling him that Bucky was a hero, telling him that they would never let Bucky die because they would keep him alive in their stories the best they could. By that point, Steve had also had a _purpose_ , a _mission_ , a _responsibility_ , whatever you wanted to call it, and the responsibility to fight for those who couldn't do it for themselves had still been there when he had woken up in a different century, separated by decades from the people who meant everything to him, and the will to do good had been enough to keep him going, if only just so.

To make things easier, Peggy had been there, too, in the new century, and even if their future together had then been but a wistful dream from a lifetime away, they had still loved each other, she had still held his heart in the palm of her small hand, wrinkled with memories, touched by the time. She had been her anchor, his love for her the helm of his ship, while the Avengers Initiative had gradually taken over his life and he had made friends, new friends, good friends, found new meaning to his life.

The shadows of Howard had gradually diminished and in their place Steve had seen Tony, _Tony_ , not the son of Howard Stark, so different from his father, but _Tony_ , the relentless, stubborn (in both good and bad), brilliant Tony, who would make sure that Steve was always _involved_ and not "moping around", who would sit with Steve on the floor and listen to Steve, as Steve told him about Bucky, as Steve shared memories of Bucky and the Howling Commandos, and Tony had always listened, making an occasional comment, laughing along at the funnier anecdotes, comforting Steve silently the best he could when Steve shared with him the sadder memories.

When Steve found out the truth about Howard and Maria Stark's death, he couldn't bring himself to tell Tony about it, fearing what it would do to Tony, fearing Tony's reaction – that Tony would then no longer let him talk about Bucky, that Tony would no longer want to share the memories.

It had been selfish, Steve now knew, and unfair to Tony, but talking about Bucky with Tony had been one of his ways to cope in this new century, where everything was done fast but no-one still seemed to have the time for anything, and at the time, Steve had believed that he could always tell Tony _later_ , if it became necessary. _Later_ when Steve was better adjusted, _later_ when Steve had managed to come to terms with it all himself, later, later, always later.

Guiltily, Steve recalled how Tony hadn't told him to shut up even when Steve had begun – a few times, not quite realizing what he was saying, so far down memory lane as he had been – to talk about "the amazing Howard Stark" and how he had done this and that with Steve and Bucky, _just the three of us, Tony, and it was wonderful_. Tony would listen and let Steve get it out and afterwards they would eat pizza and Tony would smile and make jokes, even as he wouldn't quite meet Steve's eyes. Now, thinking back to those times, Steve felt guilty and inconsiderate, having brought Howard up casually like that.

Tony had given Steve a home when it had felt like he had had no place in the world, Tony – the ever so busy Tony – had given Steve as much time as Steve had asked and needed. Tony had given Steve money, his friendship, his support, someone to confide in, the benefit of doubt in more than one occasion. Tony had spent hours after hours by improving the design of Steve's suit, by building Steve durable punching bags and other equipment he could use for his exercising, never asking for anything in return –

"' _S just something you do for a friend, Cap. Besides, if you had the brain - no offence - and the money, you'd do the same for me. Actually, you'd probably manage to improve everything, what with all the rightfulness and boy scout attitude. God, why must you be so good and pure – it's making me look bad! Just go play with your new toys and stop dimming my spotlight with your halo. Chop chop, Steve, time is money."_

– and as little as Steve had thought of the gesture at the time, Tony had always let Steve have the last of the donuts, the last piece of pizza, the last apple, the last muffin, the better seat in the sofa…

And what had Steve given Tony in return when it came down to it?

A broken suit and a basket full of accusations.

Yes, grief was indeed a peculiar thing: When Peggy had died, Steve had been thrown into the heart of a tornado, or at least that's what it had felt like. He had lost his anchor and his helm had gone out of control, everything had gone black and silent, everything had been an uncontrollable twirl around him, he had felt disconnected, different from everyone else, he had been unable to sit still. It had been impossible to think clearly and he could have sworn he had heard Peggy's voice on more than one occasion, her soft whisper in his ear like a physical touch (Sam had later told him that he wasn't going crazy, that it wasn't even all that unusual for grieving people to hear a loved one's voice in their head).

Peggy's passing had shattered Steve like nothing had before. It couldn't have been a worse timing for the Accords, especially with Bucky's simultaneous appearance. Steve hadn't had the time to deal with the loss of Peggy, with his grief, with being in the heart of the tornado, looking at all the _twirling twirling twirling_ , and then Tony had put hundreds of pages full of formal text in front of him and told him to sign, and Peggy had been there, whispering in Steve's ear to not do it - _that's not how_ we _would have done it back in_ our _day, Steve, is it_ \- and suddenly it had been the son of Howard standing in front of Steve, not _Tony_ , and where it would have been difficult to turn his back on Tony, it hadn't been all that hard to do so to the son of Howard Stark who was nothing like his father.

Things had only gone from bad to worse from there.

He had known even in his grief that right at that moment nothing had mattered as much as keeping Bucky alive now that he was back, now that Steve had finally found him (or had it been the other way around), but Steve had been out of control in his grief, he hadn't been able to make difficult decisions, to think things through, and not even the brief moment of shared loss with Sharon Carter, the attempt to give and take comfort in a form of a kiss, had been able to help him to get him back to his senses.

Steve sighed. What a mess it all had been, the consequences little more than regret and pain, and even the joy he felt for Bucky being now safe was dimmed by the fact that Bucky was in cryogenic storage and would be for who knew for how long.

Thirst burnt Steve's throat, as he wiped sweat from his brow with the hem of his t-shirt. The wind smelt of sand and its touch was hot, almost scalding on Steve's skin. It didn't bring the momentary cool relief Steve was used to associating with wind.

Steve took a glance at his watch. The strap's black color had faded into a dark shade of grey in the almost constant sunlight the watch nowadays had to endure, but the crystal was still relatively clear, if you wiped it a bit on your t-shirt, which was exactly what Steve now did.

It was 3.46 PM, which could only mean one thing.

Smiling to himself, Steve shaded his eyes with his hand and turned to look towards the white building, their compound. And yes, just as Steve had known he would be, Sam was now jogging towards him, carrying a canister – full of water, based on the way it kept letting out sloshing sounds with each step Sam took – in one hand and a Coca-Cola bottle filled with crystal clear water in the other, his eyes protected by a pair of sunglasses, functional more so than stylish.

By now, it had become a daily routine of sorts: After lunch, Steve would go out to scrape. At around fifteen to four, Sam would jog to him and remind him that the team would be gathering in the living room for their evening session after dinner. He would ask Steve to be there and Steve would say that he would, sure, and then Sam would hand the canister over and Steve, suddenly realizing how thirsty he was, would drink all the water.

Sam would take the empty canister, continuing his daily jog to the shadows of nearby palm trees, where Steve would see Clint making arrows for his new bow – a part of Clint's daily routine – and Sam would give the water bottle to Clint and remind him of their evening session and ask Clint to be there to participate, and while Steve didn't know what Clint answered, Clint, too, would be in the living room by the time Sam would begin the session after dinner.

"Hey, man," Sam now said, putting the canister down in its usual place on the one step of the shed. "Wow, it's so hot I could swear I'm melting."

"You do look like it too," Steve joked, gesturing with his scraper at Sam's sweat-soaked t-shirt which was clinging to him in a manner that had to be uncomfortable.

"Yeah, well, but at least no-one can now deny that I look hot," smirked Sam. "I'm telling you, Steve – if there were any ladies around, they'd be telling me I look as hot as if I were _on fire_."

He ran the red bottle cap under the text on his t-shirt. PRETENTIOUS MOTHER, the flaming text declared, and while Steve wasn't all that familiar with modern music, even he knew that Pretentious Mother was the number one rock band in Wakanda.

"Fiery hot, just like my new favorite band."

"I'm glad you enjoy local culture," Steve told him sincerely.

"Speaking of local, we'll be having goat for dinner again…"

"And speaking of dinner?" Steve prompted with a bit of a smile, knowing what would be coming next, because that's how this new routine worked for the two of them.

Sam's smile had a sheepish edge to it.

"Speaking of dinner, Steve, don't forget our session after the dinner."

"I won't, I'll be there."

Sam's smile faded away and his expression turned serious.

"Seriously, man," he said, "it's healthy to let things out, to talk about them. The sessions are exactly for that, for sharing, for letting things out. None of us is in this alone, you know. I hope you keep that in mind."

None of them were in it on their own, Steve did know that. Every evening after dinner they would gather around in the living room and Sam would thank them all for being there. The sessions always followed the same pattern:

Clint would avoid talking about his family, not mentioning his wife or children once, and would instead show them the arrow he had made that day, describing its strengths and weaknesses and comparing it to the arrow he had made the day before. T'Challa had provided him with the materials for the bow and arrows and Clint had been perfecting his set for the past month. Each evening Clint talked about his arrows – and nothing but the arrows – and each evening Sam listened intently to everything Clint said – as well as to what he _didn't_ say, knowing Sam – and then Sam would thank Clint for "sharing with the group".

As opposed to Clint, Scott would talk about his family eagerly and for so long that he was often in tears by the end of their session. At some point, Scott would always show them a folded, worn-out photograph of his smiling daughter and then he would say that he missed her more than anything. He missed her so much, he would say, that it didn't even compare to his missing JFK fried chicken, and Sam would listen and Clint would eventually pat Scott's back and Steve would say,

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

And Wanda would say in her heavy accent, "I, too, regret many things," and that would be all she would say, except for the one time she asked them out of the blue – cutting Clint's description of that day's arrow off – if they were afraid of her, if they thought she was a monster, which they had all denied.

Natasha had come to Wakanda after their first week there. She had been in contact with Clint, Steve knew, and Clint had told her where to find them. Steve didn't know what she did with all her time, but sometimes he heard classical music from her room, as he walked pass by it, and the music would often be accompanied by the barely audible sound of dancing shoes moving on the floor. In the evenings when they all sat in their circle due to Sam's insistency, sharing things, she would be the one to talk the most, and while she often said things they didn't want to hear, they loved and respected her so much that they listened and let her speak without interruptions.

Unlike they had done with Tony, Steve would always think with guilt gnawing at him.

Natasha would tell them, frankly, how disappointed she was with the aftermath of the Accords. She would tell them that the Avengers' situation was unbearable and that the void between the two sides would have to be mended, "the sooner, the better." She would tell them that her views on the Accords hadn't changed – that was, she said, a considerable part of the reason why she had followed them to Wakanda, leaving Tony, Rhodes and Vision behind. Each evening she pleaded for them to take another look at the Accords, to reconsider signing – they could work with the UN to mend the Accords, she insisted – and each evening Sam would listen to her and then say, rather tensely, "Thank you for sharing your thoughts with the group, Natasha, I'm sure we'll all… consider what you said," and Natasha would say that she hoped they would.

And Steve, then? Each evening Steve told the group how much he appreciated all they had done for Bucky and that would be all he would say.

The corners of Sam's mouth gave now a bit of a twitch and he shoved the Coca-Cola bottle at Steve's face, so close that the cool surface touched the tip of Steve's nose.

"Oo-oo," Sam made his best impression of a ghost, moving the bottle in front of Steve's face as if it was haunting him. "Steve Rogers, oo-oo-oo! Don't _bottle_ things up, or the spirit of this bottle will haunt you every time you even think of drinking!"

Steve couldn't help but chuckle, swatting at the bottle playfully.

"You made your point, Sam, okay. I promise I'll be there."

Sam pulled the bottle back and Steve could again see his face from behind it. Gone was the playfulness and in its stead, there were concern and understanding and not an ounce of judgement.

Steve wished he could have been as good a man as Sam was.

"I know you will," Sam said gently. "You'll sit on your chair with your back straight, at attention, like someone is about to interrogate you for the murder of Abraham Lincoln. I can't make you open up, Steve, and it wouldn't even be healthy to force you to tell us how you're doing – how you're really doing – but I do want you to know that when you're ready, you can tell us – me – whatever you like and it won't change my opinion of you. Whatever you want to share with me, no matter how small you think it is, is progress."

"Thank you," Steve said softly after a while. "I know my progress is… slow, but I do appreciate what you're trying to do."

"Grieving is a process, mate," Sam said, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder. "It'll take time, but gradually you'll learn to live with it."

* * *

Two minutes after Sam had jogged away, taking the water bottle to Clint, the flip phone rang, the old Nokia tune sounding loud and shrill in the peaceful afternoon. Steve had taken a habit of carrying the phone with him wherever he went, but while he had hoped and wished that it would ring, he knew Tony better than to expect a phone call any time soon. Now, surprised and taken aback that the phone was _actually ringing_ , Steve got so startled that he dropped it and ended up on his knees in his haste to pick it up.

As soon as he had managed to press the button with the green phone symbol on it to answer the call, he brought the phone up to his ear.

"Tony?" he said breathlessly, his throat suddenly tight.

"No, this is not Tony, and don't you fucking 'Tony' him – you've lost the right, jerk face," spoke the voice of one Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes.

* * *

That morning, the Prime Minister of Wakanda had unexpectedly announced her resignation. She had been accused of bribing local business owners and when video evidence was recovered, she could no longer deny the accusations. Wakandan media had been full of news of the dramatic resignation and her crime – quite uncommon in Wakanda, the forth least corrupt country in the world – which was likely the reason why Steve hadn't yet heard of Tony's abduction by the time Rhodes had called him.

When Steve burst into the living room with Clint and Sam hot on his heels, Scott was lounging on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn on his belly, watching a documentary on llamas. Steve snatched the remote control from where Scott was loosely holding it in his hand and switched to channel 32 – BBC World News – without stopping to ask for a permission.

"Hey!" Scott protested immediately, popcorn flying everywhere, as he pushed himself to sit up. "I was watching that! The baby llama was just about to be born."

Steve ignored the protests. Instead, his eyes were glued to the screen where the journalists were speculating whether the motives for Tony's abduction were about money, revenge or, for instance, his work as Iron Man.

"This is not an entirely uncommon occurrence in Mr. Stark's colorful life," said a woman who – according to the name bar – was an Iron Man expert from Yale University and an independent biographer of Anthony Stark. "Yet, the case is exceptional: no-one has abducted him from his own tower before and had you asked me a week ago, I would have told you that such a thing would be pretty much impossible to achieve. Mr. Stark is known for his attention to detail, especially when it comes to the security of the Tower. The people responsible for the kidnapping clearly know what they are doing and I would go as far as to claim that they have done similar things before."

An image of Tony – making a peace sign at the camera in some posh event with a smiling Pepper standing beside him – appeared on the screen while the woman was talking and Tony looked so content with his life in the image that Steve was momentarily overwhelmed by regret, guilt and sadness.

"Okay," said Scott slowly, "that shit sounds more important than my Peruvian llamas, I give you that."

* * *

"It's a trap, Steve," Clint said, pacing in front of the sofa on which Steve was sitting with Natasha and Scott. Sam, with his brow furrowed, was leaning against the armrest with his arms folded across his chest, while Wanda stood with her back to them, looking out of the window at the blooming garden outside, her hands on the windowsill.

"You know it's a trap, right?" Clint asked. "They're just trying to lure you back, so they can lock you up in the raft without all the political inconvenience it would take for them to come and get you from here. This whole thing is obviously a hoax - I mean, there's _no way in hell_ that anyone could've abducted Tony from his own bedroom. It's got to be a trap."

"It's not a trap," argued Natasha in her cool manner, even as her eyes had a sharp look in them as they followed Clint's restless pacing. "Think about it, Clint. Tony wouldn't use Rhodes for his dirty work. Besides, this kind of a scheme just isn't Tony's style. It's not flashy enough."

"It might not be 'flashy' per se," Clint argued right back, "but it sure as hell is dramatic and drama, as we all know, is Tony's forte. I bet you ten bucks he's not in any danger and we're worrying our asses for nothing."

"Tony wouldn't use Rhodes like that," Natasha emphasized her first point. "He doesn't get other people involved, especially if he cares about them and, _as we all know_ , Tony does care about Rhodes."

"Whether it's a trap or not is irrelevant to me," Steve told them. "If there's even the slightest of chance that Tony-" Steve bit his lip, sharply reminded of the way Rhodes had straight up told him that he didn't deserve to call Tony by the first name anymore – Steve didn't agree, as he still wanted to believe that they were friends, but the words had stung, nevertheless. "If there's any chance that he is in trouble, I must go help him. I _promised_ him that I _would_ come, if he called, and I have every intention of keeping my word."

Tony had now been missing for over thirteen hours. He was being tortured because he wouldn't give up Steve's location, Rhodes had said, and since the phone call, the image of Tony – lying on the Siberian ground bloody and broken, looking up at Steve with hurt and betrayal in his eyes – hadn't left Steve.

Steve had to go back, he had to, for Tony – not only because of what had occurred between the two of them, but because he cared about Tony. He loved Tony; Bucky was his brother, Tony was his best friend. Steve wanted to believe that they could still fix things between them, if only they were given a chance at it.

If only neither one of them died before that.

"It wasn't even Stark himself who called you, was it," Scott said. "Who knows, General Ross might be waiting for you at the airport."

"Tony wouldn't do that," Steve felt sure about that. "No, Rhodes was calling _on his behalf_ , because Tony has been kidnapped and the kidnappers want me in exchange for him. I know Tony and this is not something he would do."

"When it comes to Stark, I no longer know what to believe."

Despite of his words, Clint stopped pacing, suddenly looking less sure and more lost, as he rubbed the nape of his neck. Natasha stood up and went to him. She slapped Clint so hard that the sound of it made Steve startle and had Wanda spun around.

Slowly, Clint raised a hand to his cheek, rubbing at it.

"Get it together," Natasha said, not unkindly.

When Clint spoke, his voice was quiet.

"I was a right asshole to him the last time we spoke, Nat. I vented it all on him, blamed him for everything. Never apologized either. He probably hates me. Probably would prefer it, if we all stayed in Africa and never bothered him again."

"He might," agreed Natasha and Clint cast his gaze down, " _but_ now he needs your help, our help. Do you care about him enough to put your insecurities aside?"

"I'm not asking any one of you to come with me," Steve put in hastily, feeling like he needed to make it clear for once and for all. "I actually believe you all should stay here. You're living here comfortable enough, but more importantly, here you are safe, T'Challa will see to that. According to Rhodes, I'm the one the people who kidnapped Tony want, not you. I'm going to be booking one seat for myself on the flight to New York, but you can stay here."

"Book two seats. Obviously," said Sam. "I'll go get my wings."

"Better make it four," said Clint with a sigh, gesturing between himself and Natasha.

"I don't know Stark well," said Scott, "at all, if I'm honest, but I'm coming with you – I figure we should be doing these things together, 'as a team' as Natasha has been telling us during the group sessions."

Natasha shot Scott a surprised look and Steve saw how her cheeks flushed a bit – she was visibly pleased that at least someone had been listening to her.

"Five seats it is," said Steve, resigned.

"Six," corrected Wanda. "When do we leave?"

* * *

By the time Rhodes had ended the phone call, it had been four o'clock in the afternoon. Two hours later, a plane departed Wakanda to New York with Steve, Sam, Clint, Wanda, Scott and Natasha aboard. T'Challa had had to stay behind to take care of the prime minister's resignation, but due to Steve's request, he had nevertheless generously offered to have one of his pilots fly them over the Atlantic Ocean and had made sure to send some of his researchers along, so the flight could officially be all about "international research collaboration" rather than "aiding vigilantes" – one political disaster per week had apparently been more than enough for the young king.

The researchers – two grumpy old men – were now sitting at the back of the plane with their noses pressed in books, occasionally exchanging a comment about this and that in Xhosa. They weren't paying any mind to the superheroes who shared the plane with them, although they had initially given Steve and the others a few uninterested glances.

When they had taken off, the pilot had told Steve that the flight duration would be about 14 hours, that they would be in New York at around 4 AM, local time, and – the first three hours – Steve had kept on glancing at his watch every few minutes, counting seconds till they would reach their destination, his mind coming up with more and more awful things the kidnappers could be doing to Tony in the time it would take for Steve to fly to them.

He would have likely kept on glancing at his watch until they landed in New York, but eventually Natasha had had enough of his nervous fidgeting with the watch and so she had taken it from him. Steve didn't know how she had done it, but one moment the watch had been on his wrist, the next she had slipped it under her blouse and into her bra – knowing that Steve would never even attempt to take it back from there.

Fourteen hours could feel like an eternity. They kept the news on the whole flight, just in case something new about Tony's situation would be reported, but apart from following the broadcasts, there was little for them to do. Eventually they attempted to go to sleep with varying degrees of success.

Steve couldn't sleep. Even after both Natasha and Clint had followed the others to the land of dreams, Steve couldn't calm his mind enough to get rest, worn and tired though he felt.

He shifted his eyes to the back of the plane, where his friends were lounging in their seats. Wanda had curled up to a ball, leaning her head on the window, while Clint sat up straight in his seat with drool running down the corner of his mouth, having mastered the ability to sleep in such a position. Scott had stuffed earplugs into his ears and wore a sleeping mask on his face and he had been gone to the world for about seven hours already, mumbling every now and then something about "buying ponies" and wanting to "fly on a fly". Natasha and Sam Steve couldn't see from behind the others, but he could hear Sam's snoring and Natasha's occasional sleepy huffs.

Steve sighed and looked out of the window at the starry sky and the black ocean beneath it. He had apologized to Tony in the letter. He had sent the flip phone as an olive branch, but clearly it hadn't been enough, if Tony had told Rhodes about the phone but still hadn't called Steve. Tony was angry, that was perfectly understandable, and Tony had the right for his emotions, of course, but so did Steve, and Steve _yearned_ to set things right between them again. He would give Tony time and he would prove to Tony that they were still friends, he would- he could-

do something

anything

to make Tony see that he was earnestly sorry, that he regretted how things had gone for the two of them. Because he _did_ care for Tony, he _did_. The man _was_ dear to him. Steve would save Tony, or offer himself to the kidnappers in his stead, whichever way would be more likely to guarantee Tony's safe return.

* * *

When they landed in New York at 4.06 AM, Tony had been missing for over 31 hours.

It turned out that Ross was not waiting for them at the airport. There were no soldiers, no press, no police. Instead, there was Vision hovering by two black cars that had the Stark logo painted on them. Vision greeted them politely, although Steve couldn't help but notice the rather obvious manner in which he kept avoiding looking in Wanda's direction. Wanda, for her part, didn't raise her eyes from her shoes.

"I am to escort you to the Tower, Steven Rogers," Vision said after the mutual greetings had been done. "I would appreciate it, if you didn't try to run away on the way there, as I will stop you by any means necessary."

"I won't give you trouble," Steve promised and Vision inclined his head in gratitude.

"That would be much appreciated."

They got into the cars – Steve, Natasha and Scott in one, while Clint, Wanda and Sam climbed into the other. Vision chose to fly above Steve's car and Steve could feel his gaze on his neck the whole drive from airport to Manhattan.

"Jet lag," said Scott when they left the airport, covering his yawn with the back of his hand. "Always gets to me."

"You slept for almost ten straight hours on the plane," said Natasha in her dry manner, "and we haven't yet been here for ten minutes. How can you possibly be tired already?"

"I just said," said Scott. "It's the jet lag."

"Would it be possible for me to get my watch back now?" asked Steve, daring to take a glance at Natasha's briests in order to see if there were any watch-shaped lumps visible there.

"Eyes forward, soldier," came Natasha's answer.

* * *

"First of all, you are not welcome here," said Rhodes by way of greeting when they all had gathered around in their old familiar kitchen in the Stark Tower – once known as the Avenger Tower, Steve thought wistfully.

They were sitting at the kitchen table on their usual seats with Scott sitting in Tony's place. The spider boy had climbed up onto the kitchen counter, but so far he hadn't said anything, although Steve could tell that the boy was studying them all closely.

The kitchen hadn't changed all that much, although many items - the individual mugs of the Avengers, the team photos on the fridge, Natasha's knife stand - had disappeared.

"Second of all," Rhodes continued, "my goal is to get Tony back. I'm willing to use Rogers in any way I need to to achieve that goal."

"Very well," said Steve, giving Rhodes a nod.

"Now hold on a second," said Sam, raising a hand to emphasize his words, "we're not just going to be handing Steve over to anyone, if that's what you two mean."

"I second that," the spider boy spoke for the first time, drawing everyone's attention to him at once.

"Don't get me wrong," the boy hastened to add, jumping off the counter with considerable agility, "I care about Mr. Stark, like, a lot - he's the most awesome person _ever_ \- but even though he's been hurt by some nasty people, he still hasn't given up Mr. Rogers-"

"Captain Rogers," Sam corrected automatically.

"Mr. Stark has told me that I should refer to Mr. Rogers as 'Mr. Rogers'."

Hearing the boy's frank words felt like an icy hand had squeezed Steve's heart - Captain America was gone, as far as Tony was concerned. Steve had given up the shield, yes, but he had hoped... He had _wished_...

"That's because Stark can be a bit of an ass," said Clint, "and not nearly as 'awesome' as you seem to think he is."

The boy shrugged, seemingly unfaced.

"The world you get is the world you give away," he said. "Anyway, my point is that Mr. Stark, for one reason or another, clearly doesn't want his captors to get a hold of Mr. Rogers, otherwise he would have told them of Mr. Rogers' whereabouts already. Shouldn't we, you know, take that into consideration?"

Rhodes sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"If you had to choose between Mr. Stark and _Mr._ Rogers, Spider-Man, which one would you choose? Do I even need to ask that question? Because that's what this whole thing comes down to."

The spider boy - Spider-Man, as he seemed to be called - stood frozen.

"I don't want Mr. Stark to die," he eventually said.

"And I don't want _Captain_ Rogers to die," said Sam sharply. "I'm not letting anyone hand him over to the kidnappers. I will, however, do all I can to guarantee Stark's safe return."

Rhodes opened his mouth, but before he managed to say anything, Wanda had slammed the palm of her hand against the table, drawing everyone's attention to her.

"We will achieve nothing, if we contiue arguing," she said, looking at them all in turn. "I have been cruel to Mr. Stark in the past in ways that you do not even know about, but _I am not a monster_. I am not a monster and I am not cruel and I will prove that by aiding you in finding Mr. Stark, even though I have not forgiven him about the ills he has done to me in the past."

"Consider your words more carefully from now on, Miss Maximoff," said Vision, still avoiding looking in Wanda's direction. "I do not care for the way you are talking about my father."

"How about we take a more constructive approach to the whole thing," suggested Natasha. "If we want Stark back, we need to keep our differences to ourselves - we can always continue fighting afterwards. In the meantime, we all have our strengths, so how about everyone here does their part and we work _together_ to get Stark back _without_ handing Rogers over to the kidnappers in exhange. That'd be a nice little way to tell them to go fuck themselves."

"I agree," said Clint, which didn't surprise Steve. Looking at Rhodes and Vision, Clint added, "Give us something to work with. Do you have surveillance footage? Anything that could give us a clue on where they're keeping Stark."

"We received several image files yesterday," Vision said and Rhodes' head snapped towards him. "There could be clues in them."

"We're not showing the images to _them_ ," Rhodes hissed, glaring at Vision with an incredulous look on his face. "Have you lost your mind, Vision! Tony wouldn't want _them_ to see him like that."

"We can worry about that later, but right now the most important thing is to try to find him," Vision reasoned, although he sounded reluctant. "To my understanding, Agents Romanov and Barton have experience in matters such as finding clues on and in photographs. I believe they might notice things that we and the police failed to notice."

"May I also suggest," Vision said after an awkward pause, "that Miss Maximoff would take a look at this scorpion figurine that can walk and has the ability paralyze people - perhaps she could find something out about it with her skills."

* * *

"North Carolina," said Natasha, eyeing the images.

"Definitely," agreed Clint.

"How can you tell?" asked Vision only to receive two equally blank stares by way of an answer.

Sam studied the images with a professional air around him, although there was a twitch in his jaw that told Steve that Sam found the images unpleasant to look at, to say the least.

"Jesus Christ," swore Scott, his gaze flickering over the various images of Tony on the wall-sized screen, while Wanda stood by his side, her whole body rigid. "This is seriously fucked up."

Steve could only agree with that statement. He felt like he was going to be sick. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the images, he couldn't stop looking even though they made him want to punch something, preferably the people who were responsible for Tony's condition in the images, the people who were doing all this to Tony _because of him_ , because of Steve.

Because even after everything, Tony was still protecting Steve.

* * *

 _A/N: Steve, Steve, Steve... Sigh._

 _I would love to hear your thoughts, dear reader!_


	7. Tony: Coping (If Only Just So)

_A/N: I'd like to thank all the people who've taken the time to share their thoughts with me so far - it's really rewarding and I appreciate it! Thank you to Sekiya1997, Fawkes83, Shadowlove'scookies, It'sTimeForYouToBeEqualized, gandalf537, Katdog272 (rant away all you like - it's interesting to read your thoughts!), Iron Lady, Guest of honor, Abbi04 and one guest for reviewing chapter 6. Special thank you to It'sTimeForYouToBeEqualized whose review on chapter 4 made me want to give Vision one more paragraph in chapter 6._

 _Here we go with another chapter. I hope you'll enjoy it!_

* * *

After hiding the cords underneath the potato hills, Tony's next priority was to look after his wounds the best he could.

Carefully, swearing out loud, he removed the glass from his skin. As he didn't have any water in his cell to clean the wounds with, he grated several potatoes against the rough walls and then applied the raw potato grates onto the various cuts and wounds on his skin. He could only wish that the potato grates would be enough to fight off any possible infection until he would be able to go see one of his private physicians - he couldn't recall which one of them had the expertise for these sort of things, but he figured Pepper would find that out on his behalf.

Studying his handiwork, Tony felt sad that there was no-one there to see what a good nurse he had been to himself. He was undeniably the sexiest nurse who had ever nursed him, Tony decided – he wasn't even wearing a shirt! He was like something out of a sexy nurse fantasy, if one didn't take into consideration that he was also the patient, covered in grime and blood and scorpion spit and potato grates.

Was it disrespectful to have fantasies of sexy nurses? Tony hoped it wasn't because he didn't mean to be disrespectful to nurses, no, sir, not at all. He was Iron Man, but nurses were made of steel, that Tony had concluded a long time ago, and he just so happened to have a thing for people who were made of steel, like Pepper.

"Perhaps I should become a nurse," Tony muttered to himself – he would need to tell all about this to Rhodey later, Tony mused, momentarily distracted by the thought of sexy nurse outfits.

Some people might have thought it odd that he was thinking about sexy nurses moments after experiencing torture, moments after a giant scorpion had eaten a puppy from top of him, but it was one of Tony's more unorthodox coping mechanisms and it helped him to get a grasp of reality, to ground himself with an ounce of normalcy.

The glass shards were still green and bright in the dim lantern light, despite of the blood on them. Tony studied them warily, albeit with curiosity. Moving glass objects were undeniably fascinating and although Tony would have been more than happy to blast them out of existence, he was also interested in figuring out how they worked, what made them move, where they had come from.

With his mind busy coming up with possible theories about the scorpions' origins, Tony's body took over and he began to "mind walk": He took his socks off and, wearing one of the socks on his hand like a glove to protect his skin, he carefully gathered all the glass into a neat pile. Then, he put the biggest potato he could find inside the other sock and tied a knot at the base before sticking the shards into the potato through the sock's fabric, thus making himself a club.

It was primitive as far as Tony's usual weaponry went and clumsy – at best – as far as clubs were considered, but at least he now had a weapon on him. All that now was needed was a chance to use it.

The kidnappers had been gone for quite some time now, having left Tony after their recorded torture session - "the questioning", as the kidnappers had had the nerve to call it – and since then, Tony had been in his cell alone. It must have been hours now, Tony was certain of it, and although he wasn't in any hurry for the men to come back, the possibility that The Scorpion might wonder to his cell when he was on his own made him more anxious than he cared to admit even to himself.

His kidnappers might have considered The Scorpion something divine, but Tony hadn't seen anything divine. All he had seen was an animal with primal instincts, an animal that had learnt that it would get an easy meal if it followed the sound of humming, or whatever it was that The Salivating Scorpions used to call for it.

Tony didn't know why The Scorpion hadn't eaten him, too, when he had laid there on the altar on display, he didn't know why it had only satisfied its hunger with the puppy - it must have had something to do with the presence of the kidnappers – but he was positive that if The Scorpion was to encounter him in the tunnels under different circumstances, it would want to eat him like the predatory animal it was.

And if it found Tony in the locked cell? Well, Tony could only hope that the bars were secure enough to keep a giant scorpion at bay – and how ironic was that, to hope that the bars keeping him imprisoned were as secure as possible!

Now, alone in his cell, Tony could hear the distant roar of the Atlantic Ocean coming from above him. It was a constant deep rumble, a constant reminder that he might drown at any moment, if the engineering of the underground compound failed and the water began to pour in. It would only take one small crack, Tony knew, one small crack and nothing would stop the ocean from flooding the tunnels and his cell – if it were to happen when Tony was alone in his cell, the chances were that the cell would become his grave since he didn't believe the kidnappers would under such circumstances run to unlock the door for him.

"Fuck them," Tony said out loud, just to get something else to listen to but the constant sound of the roaring ocean above him. "Fuck them all. With no lube."

No-one answered, not that he had been expecting an answer.

* * *

By the time the kidnappers came back from lunch, Tony had located several green potatoes because he knew they contained solanine, a poison, and although he didn't have either the time or the equipment to isolate the solanine, he figured he might use the green potatoes for _something_ if ever the opportunity showed itself.

Or rather, he had been terribly bored and had needed something – anything – to do.

Hearing approaching steps, Tony's first instinct was to grasp his club, but as soon as he could distinct that several people were approaching, he swore to himself, coming to the decision that the odds were too much against him - he needed to wait for a better opportunity to use the club or he would simply be overpowered and the club would be taken from him – and so he quickly hid the club underneath the potato hills, just as he had done with the green potatoes and the cords.

When Henson, Gregory, Mole, the photographer and two goons appeared, Tony was already sitting near the door, munching a raw potato with as much gusto as he was able to summon while shivering, shirtless, and wearing drenched trousers with the smell of the puppy's blood still lingering around.

"I'm on a lunch break," he told the kidnappers as soon as they came to a halt on the other side of the bars. "Come back later, or better yet, contact my people and schedule a meeting. I'm a busy man."

"We did indeed contact your people," said Henson jovially. "Even if you won't give us what The Scorpion needs, perhaps your people will be more reasonable when they see how unpleasant your stay with us has been so far."

Tony's anger flared up at Henson's words.

"What did you do? he demanded, jumping up to his feet, grasping the bars for support when the sudden movement made his head spin. "What the hell did you bastards do?"

"We sent your friends in the Tower some image files and a video of the questioning," Mole said with a smirk. "They must have received them by now."

Anxiety and worry coursed through Tony, as the mental image of Rhodey and Vision seeing him battered and bloody hit him. It had been but hours since they had seemingly witnessed his death and now they would have to see him tortured – the idea made Tony feel helpless and guilty, even though it wasn't his fault that he had been kidnapped, and he hated the kidnappers for what they were making his friends – his family – go through. At least, Tony tried to reassure himself, at least Rhodey and Vision and Pepper would have proof that he hadn't been dead when he had been taken from the Tower, they would have proof that the scorpion figurine hadn't killed him after all.

Tony could only hope that Spider-Man had had the sense to not look at any of the material the kidnappers had provided for them. Peter shouldn't be subjected to such things – Tony had long since forgotten what it had been like to be innocent and, if truth be told, he didn't place much value on such things, but nor did he want to be the cause of Peter becoming more hardened, more cynical, more… like Tony.

Peter was better than that. Way better.

Peter was even better than what Tony had – mistakenly – believed Steve to be.

"I'll let you know that my parents were happily married when they had me, Stark," grumbled Gregory. "I'm no bastard, so refrain from calling me that from now on."

"I didn't know siblings were allowed to get married in Miami."

"Do not insult my Dearest," said Henson in the most threatening tone Tony had heard him use thus far. "This is not personal, so don't make it personal."

Tony stared at Henson with disbelief.

" _You_ kinda made this personal when you took me from _my own fucking bedroom_ ," he said, unable to hide the anger from his tone. "You made this personal when you made _my friends believe I was dead_. You made this personal when you made my friends suffer! If I want to call your 'Dearest' a product of incest and accuse you of bestiality since your 'Dearest' looks like a gorilla, then I-"

That was as far as Tony got before he was yanked forward by the throat and pulled against the cold metal bars painfully hard.

"You're full of shit, Stark," Gregory snarled at his face so furiously that spit flew out of his mouth onto Tony. Up close, Tony could see Gregory's split lip clearly, it looked like it had to smart – Tony wished he had kicked the man harder. "You're full of shit and you don't deserve to ever even mention my husband. So stop annoying me – I already want you _fucking dead._ "

"So now necrophilia is your thing?" the words were out before Tony had managed to think them through. And because he had a terrible impulse control and he just couldn't hold his tongue, even if he knew he would later pay for it, he added, "Sorry, buddy, but I'm not going to be playing along with your fantasies."

"I have warned you, Stark," Gregory hissed, "I have warned you that I don't like jokes."

"How come you married one then?"

The hand around his neck tightened and Tony no longer had enough air to breathe, let alone to talk. His sight turned foggy due to tears of pain and he clawed at Gregory, trying to force the man to let go off him, but his arms were grasped from behind - the kidnappers must have opened the cell door – and they were pinned behind his back in an effective arm lock.

"For someone supposedly intelligent, your behavior certainly is stupid," said Henson. "What on Earth are you trying to achieve by antagonizing us? Are you suicidal, is that it? Let him go, DT. We still need him alive."

The pressure around his throat disappeared and Tony gagged and gasped and wheezed, trying to get air in his lungs.

He wasn't suicidal, no, but he had a tendency to build walls around himself with words, to mask his pain and fear and uncertainty behind walls of words. He rather had his captors see him as infuriating than for what he really was - helpless and afraid and completely at their mercy.

He also had a sort of bad impulse control, he had to admit, and if a comment popped into his head, it likely popped out of his mouth as well.

"In all honesty, I had expected you to be more co-operative," said Henson when Mole and the two other goons had dragged Tony into the tunnel to face Henson and a seething Gregory. "I had actually even dared to hope that seeing The Scorpion would entice you as it has enticed us – I had dared to hope that you might want to join us in Her service. I now see, however, that you will never be one of the enlightened ones, you will never become a Salivating Scorpion. Your wealth and your skills would have been great advantages for us, it's such a pity."

"We want you here even less than you want to be here," Henson continued, "but The Scorpion needs blood _suitable_ for Her, _strong_ blood, and we believe that only your friend can provide it for Her. Tell us where to find your friend and all this will be over and you can go home. Until we have your friend, _you_ will be the one to provide the blood for Her."

* * *

Eventually they stopped asking questions.

They stopped asking questions when it became obvious that Tony wasn't going to give answers, but they still brought him into the storage room every now and then to "remind him of the situation", to remind him that he could be free and return to his tower any moment he liked to. By way of "reminding" him, they would cut him with knives and pour salt onto the wounds, they would held his head underwater in a barrel until he saw bright spots.

"You can end this," Henson would say when they did it. "We don't need to do this. This is _your choice_ , you have chosen this – you can also choose to be free."

Tony didn't want to be like Obadiah, like Steve – _he_ didn't betray people. He let them down and was overall disappointing, sure, but he _didn't betray them_. Stubbornly, Tony refused to give in, he refused to betray someone whom he had once considered one of his best friends and so he didn't tell the kidnappers a thing about Steve or Wakanda.

Sometimes he thought he heard his mother whispering in his ear, telling him that it wouldn't be betrayal if he made the pain stop by giving the kidnappers answers. It wouldn't be betrayal, she insisted, it wouldn't be comparable to Obadiah's deeds or to what Steve had done. _Save yourself, my darling,_ she begged and Tony always turned his head away from her with tears on his cheeks.

Sometimes, a few times, Tony wondered if any of it was even real – he wondered if Steve and the rest of Steve's people had captured him and if this was Wanda's way of tormenting him, if this was one of the nightmares Wanda had Tony to endure. He knew she hadn't forgiven him for the things she blamed him for and although he wasn't sure if she still hated him so much that she would do this to him, he knew she was childish in many ways and might not fully understand the dire consequences her actions could have. In any case, in his mind hazy with pain and exhaustion, there remained the stubborn resolution to _not give in_ , regardless of whether the kidnappers were real or something Wanda had created.

 _"Steve Rogers was the best of men,"_ his father's voice would tell Tony while the kidnappers held his head underwater. _"I'm sure you're aware that_ you _, Anthony, of all people, could never compare to Captain Rogers, but be as it may, you are now being foolish. Captain Rogers can look after himself - and so must you. I created the serum, I_ know _it can keep Rogers safe, but even if it wouldn't, my greatest creation is_ you _and your safety is more important to me than his. Tell them where to find Rogers and save yourself, my boy. Or will you disappoint me by dying here, by dying like this, underground, already buried like a trapped rat?_

When the kidnappers felt like they had "reminded" Tony enough, they would drag Tony to the altar. They would make him bleed and then they would hum and The Scorpion would appear from the shadows to lick the blood off of him.

"Your blood, or your friend's? It's your decision," Henson would tell him afterwards, but Tony – terrified, crying, often having a panic attack – couldn't ever even find the breath to curse at him.

* * *

"He was building a bomb!"

Exasperated, Tony looked up at KT from where he was being held against a wall right outside the cell door with his cheek pressed uncomfortably against the rough, cold stone. Mole had a gun pressed against his neck, and even though Tony doubted the man would actually shoot him, he wasn't going to test that theory any time soon – no, sir, thank you, sir – and not only because that might earn him a concussion and Tony couldn't afford getting a concussion under the circumstances - he _was_ planning on escaping, after all, and a concussion would be a hindrance.

"I saw it myself," KT kept going on, his tattooed arms gesturing wildly from Tony to the remains of the potatoes he had smashed with the heels of his combat boots. "There was a ticking sound coming from it, I could hear it!"

Tony rolled his eyes.

"I might have saved The Scorpion by destroying the bomb!"

"Um, excuse you for just a minute there!" Tony had to put in because, seriously? That was just insulting. "That's just insulting. _If_ I had been building a bomb, you couldn't have been able to get rid of it by _stepping onto it_. My explosives do what they have been designed to do – they _explode_ , therefore it _should_ be easy to conclude that _that_ wasn't a bomb."

"Then what was it?" KT demanded, marching to Tony, leaning so close that Tony could smell the coffee in his breath. "Tell us, Stark, what the hell were you doing? And don't try to give us any of your usual bullshit."

"I built a water clock," Tony answered honestly. "It was a fucking _water clock_. As I was telling you before you began to stomp on it."

Measuring time reliably was difficult when you were underground, being tortured. Based on the scruffy stubble already ruining his immaculately groomed goatee (much to his chagrin), it had now been at least five days since he had been kidnapped. By now, approximately five days since his kidnapping, Tony had lost his sense of time. There were no clocks, no sunsets, no sunrises, no stars, no Moon, nothing but his bodily functions, his heartbeats and the growth of his facial hair, but none of those were reliable enough methods for measuring time, especially as his internal clock was used to his erratic way of living and hadn't therefore ever truly adapted to going to bed at a certain time or getting routinely up at the same hour.

In any case, they were too subjective, the depth of his hunger and thirst and the need to pee, and his heart beat too irregularly, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, and counting one hundred heartbeats when he woke up didn't necessarily take the same amount of time as counting the same amount of heartbeats would when he was brought back to his cell.

Measuring time underground _reliably_ might have had its challenges, but – _but_ – it wasn't impossible, which Tony had proved by building the water clock: Tony had hollowed out potatoes and joined them by using a finger joint, by interlocking fingers. He had then poured some of his scant water resources (one full glass) into it and the clock had worked perfectly, beautifully, just as Tony had known it would. It had given him a sense of reality, the clock had proved to him that time _was_ still passing even if it had almost started to feel like it didn't, that all this _was_ actually happening, that it wasn't one of Wanda's nightmares. In that sense, too, the water clock had worked _perfectly_ – that was, until KT had walked by and had happened to see it.

"A water clock my ass," KT now said, spinning around to face Henson and Gregory who had both followed him into the tunnel from Tony's cell, where they had been studying the remains of the water clock. "I heard a ticking sound, I swear I did! There was a ticking sound coming from it!"

"Water drops," Tony snapped, losing his patience. "It was the sound of water drops, you imbecile. _God_ , how stupid can you get!"

The gun on his neck was pressed deeper into his skin and Tony bit his tongue to keep quiet.

Gregory gave Tony an impassive look, but other than that he and Henson didn't seem to be paying Tony any mind – even though he _was_ their current topic of conversation.

"We underestimated him," stated Henson, taking off his glasses and rubbing his temples as if he was having a headache. "It's quite a feat that he managed to build anything in his current circumstances and obviously he couldn't have been building a bomb out of potatoes, but this nevertheless goes to show that he's innovative and won't let a lack of resources affect his creativity."

"He's more trouble than he's worth," Gregory might have looked impassive, but his voice was full of venom and ice. "We leave him alone with some potatoes for a little while and the next thing we know: a potential bomb threat! There must be an easier way for us to reach our goal, sweetheart. I say we feed him to The Scorpion and get rid of this problem for once and for all."

"After all the trouble we've been through to get him?" Henson shook his head slowly. "No, Dearest, as tempting as that might be, we must let our heads rule our hearts. He's more useful to us alive than dead."

Henson gave Tony a calculated look.

"From now on," he said, "we will not let him alone for a moment. From now on, someone will be guarding him at all times."

Tony cursed himself for having made the mistake of giving his kidnappers a demonstration of his potential – he should have at least waited until he had the materials to build a bomb for real.

* * *

They didn't feed Tony to The Scorpion. Instead, they made him empty the cell of all potatoes, every single last one of them. He was given a sack and he filled it with the potatoes, carrying the filled sack further down the tunnel where he emptied it before going back for more potatoes.

The kidnappers didn't move a finger to help him, but when they noticed the cords and the clumsy club Tony had tried to hide underneath the potato piles, they became aggravated and, again, accused him of "attempted bomb building". KT and JN ended up moving the last of the potato hills from the cell to the tunnel, while Tony was taken to "further questioning".

The resulting hours – the pain, the torture – felt endless and afterwards Tony couldn't quite recall how it all had begun, even if he knew it had to do with time and potatoes.

* * *

Tony laid on his back on the ground. He was shivering and he could tell that he was starting to develope a fever. He had a headache and he wanted little more than to sleep, preferably covered with a blanket. Unfortunately, no blankets were given to him and his sleep was disturbed by the sounds coming from the tunnel right outside his cell.

"As a general rule, I don't mind kinky stuff," said Tony, staring sourly at the ceiling. "If all parties involved are into it and if there's consent all around, I admit I'm not entirely against some good old-fashioned voyeurism and a bit of light-hearted exhibitionism, but I have to say it's _so not my thing_ to be held underground against my will while two of my kidnappers get it on outside my cell. I mean, a little consideration here, guys!"

If Tony hadn't guessed it before, he would have found out that Henson and Gregory were a thing, a couple, an item – interested in fucking each other, frankly put it – when Henson had appeared from the shadows some moments earlier to "cheer up" his "Dearest", who had been standing on guard outside Tony's cell since Tony – bloody and sobbing – had been dumped into it after their latest torture session. Based on what Henson and Gregory had been moaning to each other the past few moments, it had been weeks since the last time they had had sex and so Henson had decided to "seize the first opportunity" the two of them were "alone" – apparently they didn't consider Tony a person enough that it would have bothered them to have a quick fuck while he was present.

"The room service here sucks ass," Tony said, trying to block out the obscure sounds of pleasure coming from behind him. "Quite literally. Seriously, at least get me some earplugs."

They didn't. Instead, their voices grew louder and soon enough the smell of sex mixed with the earthy, dank smell of Tony's cell and the smell of iron that had been following Tony for quite a while now due to his bloodied state, much to his displeasure.

"I've made a mental list of the crimes you've committed against me," he let the two men know in a matter-of-fact voice, addressing the ceiling, "and I'm pretty sure that this counts as some form of sexual offense, so I'm going to add this to the list."

"Can't you shut up for one minute, Stark!" Gregory's snarl echoed in the tunnel. The man sounded out of breath. "I swear I'll come in there to beat the shit out of you, if you d-"

"Better not 'come in _here_ ', lover boy," Tony shot right back, cutting the man off – it wasn't probably his wisest move to antagonize Gregory on purpose, but enough was enough and being forced to listen to his kidnappers have sex was just crossing the line. "That might disappoint your husband, although considering he married you in the first place, he must be used to disappointments by now."

There was a furious growl and Tony tensed, fully expecting the man to wrench the cell door open at any moment. He prepared himself for the kick he expected to get from his words, but before anything of the sort could happen, Henson said, "Ignore him, Dearest. He'll pay for those comments later, but ignore him for now and focus on me," which was apparently enough for Gregory to push Tony out of his mind for the time being since Tony didn't get tossed around after all.

"I've missed this, I've missed _us_ ," Henson was gasping but a moment later. "Oh, Carl, let me feel how strong you are, mm, yes – I love how big you are all over."

"Put your arms around my neck and I'll lift you up like this."

"Size kink," Tony muttered. "Figures. And for the record, _too much information_."

Tony did pay for his comments, later.

After Henson and Gregory were done with their shared moment of passion, Henson stayed outside Tony's cell to get his breath back, while Gregory instantly left only to return later carrying a large bucket full of blood.

If Tony had thought that the smell of dry blood around him had been bad before, now the poignant musty smell felt overpowering in his confined cell. Usually the metallic scent of iron reminded him of his work shop, his tools as familiar to him as his own hands, of _home_ , but here, underground, unable to escape the ruddy smell, it felt raw and reminded him of cruel actions, of the weapons he had once designed in his workshop, of the gaping hole in his chest when he had lied on the ground in Afghanistan believing he had met his death.

"Is this your version of cuddling after sex?" Tony barely heard his voice from the sound of his pounding heart. "Because if it is, I don't want to know what you consider spooning."

"I don't cuddle," said Gregory without an ounce of humor. "Or spoon. This is an _improved_ version of water torture - I do recall you saying something about _water_ torture being 'last decade'."

The bottom of Tony's stomach seemed to drop.

"To each their own," he managed. "Just make sure your partner consents."

"This is not for him," stated Gregory, grinding his teeth. "I would never hurt him! Apart from The Scorpion, he's my only love."

"You sure have a thing for venomous creatures."

* * *

 _Drowning, drowning, drowning in blood._

In his mind, Tony was screaming and crying and begging for mercy, but he never uttered a word out loud. Couldn't have if he had tried to, as Gregory and Henson never gave him the chance. By the time they were done with him, Tony was unconscious.

* * *

They wrote a message to Rhodes. It contained the kidnappers' demands and informed Rhodey that he would get Tony back in exchange for "SR" whilst also stating that Tony would suffer in "SR's" place if Rhodes refused to co-operate.

"Sign the letter," Henson ordered Tony. "With your initials only, mind you - that's how The Scorpion prefers it now that you have been purified."

Tony was seething - and afraid, afraid for Rhodes, afraid of how Rhodey would react, afraid Rhodey would do something hasty and get in trouble along with Tony. He didn't want to sign, he really didn't, but he was exhausted and so, so cold and hurting and if he just put his initials on the damn letter, the men would leave him be.

Rhodey would understand if Tony signed the letter, that Tony knew. Rhodey wouldn't think he was weak. And they were just his initials, right? It wasn't like he would betray Steve if he put his initials on the letter.

Resigned and more than ready for rest, Tony reached for the pen and the letter. He scrawled "T.S." on the bottom of the letter and even behaved so well and politely that he tried to hand the pen back over to Henson. Therefore it _was_ quite a surprise to him when Henson slapped him and told him to use his "blessed initials".

Sighing, Tony drew a line over "T.S." and wrote "A.S." beneath it – only to get slapped again, this time by Gregory.

"Stop kidding around," Gregory told him, holding him by the hair. "Your blessed initials, now, before I lose my patience."

"A.E.S. for Anthony Edward Stark? You should've told me you wanted the middle name, too," Tony muttered, which earned him yet another slap.

"Why is everything so difficult with you?" sighed Henson. "Just sign with 'SK' and stop messing around."

"SK?" Tony echoed with a snort. "Those are not my initials. What do you think they stand for, Sony Kark? My name is _Tony Stark_ , therefore my initials are 'T.S.', or 'A.S.', if you want to go with Anthony Stark."

"No," said Henson slowly. "That's not the way of The Scorpion. According to Her, your initials are 'SK' - the first and the last letter of your surname, like the beginning and ending of the night when The Scorpion rules. That's why I sometimes call Johnson 'JN' and Dearest 'DT', for instance, and the same rule applies to all those who have either been purified or whose blood is strong and pure enough without the purificiation, such as your hiding friend's. In written documents, these people should only ever be referred to with the use of their blessed initials."

"For the record," said Tony, "that's idiotic and makes no sense. So I suppose it all suits you, come to think of it."

Tony signed the letter with "S.K." as he had been instructed, too tired to use his energy to fight over such a minor thing. He needed to spare his strength for when it was truly needed, he knew, and fighting over initials in such circumstances would have been rather a waste of strength and energy.

That's when the thought hit his tired mind and he quickly recalled the letter The Salivating Scorpions had sent him.

 _Where is SR, your ever so loyal friend? You may tell him that hiding is_  
 _as useless as his efforts to "do good"._  
 _We are hungry and we are coming._  
 _We are salivating for blood._  
 _Whose shall it be?_  
 _His?_  
 _Or yours?_  
 _That depends entirely on you, Anthony Stark._

"Hold on a second," Tony said. "If you use the first and the last letter of the name for your version of 'initials', wouldn't the initials for Steve Rogers be either 'S.E.' for Steve or 'R.S.' for Rogers?"

"That's correct," said Henson, "although I fail to see what that has to do with anything. Are you suggesting that we should write a letter to Steve Rogers as well, that he might be more likely to co-operate on your behalf?"

"No," said Tony quickly. He licked his lips, suddenly nervous. "But if you think Rogers' initials would be 'R.S.', whose initials are the ones you used in the letter you sent me, whose initials are 'S.R.' if they don't stand for Steve Rogers?"

Henson gave him a slow look as if he thought Tony had just lost his mind.

"Your friend's, of course," Henson answered. "His blood would obviously be the most suitable for The Scorpion, strong as it is - and, more importantly, that's what scorpions like to eat: spiders. 'SR' obviously stands for Spider - your friend who cannot be found, your friend who hides his identity, your hiding friend. How hard did you hit him? I think he's become confused."

The last two sentences were said to Gregory, but Tony barely heard them. His mind was roaring, he wanted to scream; the situation had just gone from bad to worse.

His kidnappers didn't want Steve Rogers.

They wanted "Spider".

They wanted Peter.

* * *

 _A/N: If you're having thoughts, I would LOVE to hear them. ;)_


	8. Peter: The Rescue

_A/N: Thank you so much to Abbi04, Simonana, MagicWarriorDragon, badwolfbay99, huge sg1 fan, Katdog272, Rosesroses25, RLMz, HappyBrainiac13, Fawkes83, Guest of honor, Silverdragon, gandalf537, Aqua468, mmgage, CarlyS123, Dalamanza and one guest for taking the time to share their thoughts with me! It's such a privilege to get a glimpse to your minds and I appreciate the way you took the time to leave me a review._

 _I hope you'll enjoy the chapter!_

* * *

The smell of body spray and cigarettes reached his nostrils moments before a hard push in the back took him off guard. The push had Peter stumbling against - and half into - his open locker, but he still managed – if only just so – to hold back the instinctive reflex to jump up to the ceiling to shoot web at his attacker. Instead, he closed his locker, leaving his physics book in it, and turned around to scowl up at Maximillian Cunningham, who was now towering over him with a smirk on his tanned face with his two equally big and bulgy (for fifteen-year-olds) friends sniggering behind him – the shove might have been unexpected, but it wasn't surprising at all that it had been Maximillian behind the push.

"Max," Peter said by way of greeting, frowning at Maximillian and the two boys behind him.

Brayden Willington was fingering the red pimples on his cheeks as usual, his gaze just as malicious as it always was when it happened to land on Peter, while Francis Miller's dark hair covered most of his face apart from his mouth which hung slightly open as was characteristic to him.

"Why'd you push me?"

"You were in my way," Maximillian spoke mockingly slowly as if Peter wouldn't otherwise understand him. "That's what you do when someone is in your way, Petey boy. You get them _out of_ your way."

"Or you could go around them and continue on with your day," Peter suggested and made a broad gesture at the hallway in general. "It's a wide enough hallway even for those with bigger heads."

They were standing in the first floor of the two-storey school building and Peter's locker was located near the front entrance, separated from it only by a corner and two sets of glass doors. At this time of the day, the front entrance wasn't in much use, although there were plenty of students at their lockers, standing in small groups or by themselves. Further away by the Spanish class, Liz Allan – with her blonde hair shining in the light of the flickering fluorescent lamps – was putting books into her locker, decorated with black damask, whilst chatting in an excited manner with Jasmine, Susan, Nora, Laura and all the other girls who had gathered around her, eager to be seen talking to the popular Liz Allan – the most wonderful girl in the entire school, as far as Peter was concerned – and Liz seemed to be including them all in the conversation with a dazzling smile on her pretty face.

She was the reason why Peter had been distracted enough to have been taken off guard by Maximillian, Francis and Brayden. His senses had been tuned to her presence, not entirely of his own free will, and he had been wondering if she was mad at him for the way he had stood her up on Thursday – they had been supposed to meet up after school to compare history notes, but Peter had forgotten all about it because of Mr. Stark's disappearance. Although Mr. Stark's disappearance was naturally his first priority, Peter hoped rather wistfully that he hadn't completely blown up his chances with Liz by not letting her know that he wouldn't be able to make it to their meeting, the meeting he had been over the moon about when she had first texted him and suggested it. In fact, Peter had forgotten all about her in his worrying and it hadn't been until right at this moment when he had seen her standing at her locker that it had occured to him that he should have at least sent her a text to apologize for the way he hadn't turned up at their meeting after all.

"For a small guy the monkey sure talks a lot," said Maximillian as he took a threatening step closer to Peter.

This close to their source, the smells of body spray and cigarettes felt overpowering to Peter's sharp senses and he had to breathe through his mouth to not gag – it was at moments like these when he wished he could have always worn his Spider-Man mask to filter smells.

Maximillian threw a smirk over his shoulder at his friends and shoved Peter in the shoulder.

"How do you even teach a monkey to talk?"

"Your parents would know," Peter quipped – it wasn't a nice thing to say, but his eyes were stinging due to the powerful smells around him and it made him irritable. He could now distinct Brayden's bad breath and sweaty armpits and the weed in Francis' pocket and a general faint smell of urine, and he took an almost involuntary step backwards away from the sources of the unpleasant smells, which had him standing back against the cool metal surface of the lockers.

Maximillian snorted, looking Peter up and down with the smirk still firmly in place.

"Look at you, Parker – backing away like the sissy little fag you are. Pathetic!"

Peter sighed, adjusting the school bag strap on his shoulder – he really didn't have the time or the energy to deal with his classmates today:

It was now Friday morning and Mr. Stark had been missing for over eight days, since Wednesday evening the week before. Since last Friday, while the former Avengers had been sniping at each other and making the atmosphere in the Tower unbearably tense, Peter had spent most of his time by searching for clues that could lead them after Mr. Stark. By Sunday morning, Peter had been forced to do his best to plead everyone to _work together_ because arguing wasn't helping Mr. Stark any. Thankfully, the adults had had the sense to look ashamed and since Sunday afternoon, they had indeed been working together to come up with anything to help them to locate Mr. Stark. Romanov and Barton had been in contact with their various sources, Maximoff had been studying the glass figurine and the rest of them - with FRIDAY's help - had done pretty much everything they could think of, starting with studying the image files, ending with making lists of all the people who might be after Steve Rogers for revenge, for the serum in his blood, for any reason.

Peter, for his part, couldn't say how many hours he had spent by staring at the glass figurine in its secure casing in the Tower's laboratory, looking straight in its eight eyes as if to force it to reveal something, anything about Mr. Stark's whereabouts, but it had been long enough for Maximoff to go get some rest, long enough for everyone to leave Peter alone in the laboratory, long enough for him to take off the Spider-Man mask to ground himself - to rub his eyes with his protected hands, so he could, for a moment, feel more like Peter than Spider-Man, more like an average boy than a superhero with plenty of responsibilities.

As Peter, without the mask, he had stared at the scorpion and it had felt like it had been staring right back, and Peter had wanted little more than to throw it against the wall and to wish to wake up in his own bed to find out that it had all been a nightmare, that Mr. Stark hadn't been kidnapped for real. But he _hadn't_ woken up and it _hadn't_ been a nightmare. Mr. Stark was missing and the people looking for him were stuck with their investigations and Peter was bursting with frustration.

On top of that, a worried Miss Wilson – Peter's English teacher – had called Aunt May the evening before – Thursday evening, that was – to ask her why Peter hadn't been coming to school the whole week, which had prompted Aunt May to interrogate Peter on where he had spent all his time and Peter had had to come up with new lies in order to cover up his tracks.

" _I was helping Mrs. Beckett!"_ had been the first lie to burst out of Peter's mouth. _"I couldn't focus on studying at school with all the worrying, but I've been sweeping the floors at her pet shop, and the manual labor – as well as the presence of the animals – has really helped me to deal with Mr. Stark's disappearance. Mrs. Beckett has even made me tea to calm my nerves and we have been listening to her old vinyl records."_

That wasn't entirely a lie, although it hadn't been Peter but Spider-Man who had swiped the floors clean while "Eleanor Rigby" had been playing in the background and Mrs. Beckett had drunk the tea to calm her nerves. And that hadn't happened in the past five days but in June, months ago, sometime after Peter had met Mr. Stark for the first time: Spider-Man had been fighting a super villain in the neighborhood and Mrs. Beckett's pet shop had been damaged due to the fighting. Mrs. Beckett was an elderly woman, a friend of Aunt May's late great aunt, and she often waved at Peter when Peter biked by her pet shop to school, so obviously Spider-Man had had to go help with the clean-up as soon as he had managed to stop the bleeding of his nose.

Aunt May – whose parenting methods were about mutual trust – had given Peter the benefit of doubt and eventually she had believed him, much to the displeasure of Peter's conscience.

" _I should have been there for you more,"_ she had sighed. _"I'm sorry, Peter – I know how hard this is for you – you wouldn't skip school unless you felt like you really had to. From now on, I will be there for you. I promise I will be a better aunt."_

" _You already are the best aunt there is,"_ Peter had sworn, but she had only given him a sad smile and squeezed his hand.

" _That's only because you make it so easy for me,"_ she had said. _"You are such a sweet boy."_

Nevertheless, she had forbidden him from "going to bother Mrs. Beckett" anymore and had instead told Peter that he had to go to school since he had already skipped so many classes.

" _Tony wouldn't want you to fall behind,"_ she had said. _"He would want you to try to continue on as normal. Let's respect him by doing just that. If- no,_ when. When _Tony comes back, we'll go see him, okay? But until then, we'll be brave and keep on going as normally as we can."_

This morning, true to her words to "be there for Peter", Aunt May had driven Peter to school herself, telling him that she would be by to pick him up in the afternoon, and Miss Wilson had happened to be walking by their car just at that point and she had greeted Aunt May and had then walked with Peter into the school building with the result that now Peter was stuck at school while Mr. Stark was still missing, and Peter couldn't remember if he had ever in his life felt as frustrated.

Mr. Stark had been missing for over eight days and each day Peter had become more and more frustrated. He hadn't yet been able to do anything for Mr. Stark – apart from catching the scorpion figurine – and now he was on his way to the biology class to learn about blood cells while Mr. Stark was somewhere out there being _tortured_. Peter felt useless, _useless_!

Peter was so frustrated that he had been seriously considering revealing his identity just so he could skip school in favor of going to search for Mr. Stark – Mr. Stark's life was obviously more important than Peter's secret. He had nevertheless eventually chosen against that as his revelation could have had a more negative impact on the situation - child protective services would have likely gotten involved and both Aunt May and Mr. Stark might have been accused of "child endangerment" and Peter might have been taken into custody, one way or another, and if he had been useless before, _then_ there would have been absolutely _nothing_ he could have done for Mr. Stark.

If only Peter had already been eighteen! It wasn't like Peter was a child anymore – he would be of age in three short years – so he knew how to look after himself. He was young, sure, but being young didn't equal to being helpless and in a constant need of being protected by his elders. Mr. Stark was cool like that – he never patronized Peter and sometimes it almost felt like Mr. Stark was feeling sorry for him for the way Peter couldn't yet rule his own life, for the way he had to obey the adults in his life, for the way he had to comply with the decisions others made on his behalf. Mr. Stark despised being ordered around and Peter had noticed that if someone told Mr. Stark to do something, it wasn't unlikely that Mr. Stark made a point of not complying, so in that way it wasn't all that unexpected that he sympathized with Peter's inconvenient situation.

" _It's just three more years and then when you feel like taking a break from it all, you'll just take your favorite cruiser and sail for a bit and no-one can tell you to not do it,"_ Mr. Stark would say in a consoling manner. He often seemed to forget that Peter wasn't as rich as he was, it was one of his several quirks. _"Three more years and then you can tell your teachers to suck it."_

" _I would never!"_ Peter had said – even the thought had made him uncomfortable and flustered. _"I like my teachers, especially Señor Almeida, who works really hard to come up with motivating ways for me to learn Spanish because he knows I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the subjunctive."_

" _Huh,"_ Mr. Stark had said, looking suddenly thoughtful. _"...do you like paella? I like paella. We should totally ask May to come to eat paella with us. I know a good place."'_

And so the three of them had had paella at Socarrat Paella Bar.

"Parker is a psycho," Brayden was saying, as he popped a zit on his cheek and wiped the sebum away with the sleeve of his dark blue New York Yankees hoodie – not for the first time, judging from the stains on his sleeves. "I bet Stark has been using him for human experimentation and that's why he is now the kind of a psycho he is. Logically thinking, that would be the only reason why a genius like Stark would have any interest in the monkey."

Francis let out a sudden high-pitched bark of laughter which drew the surrounding students' attention to them and hurt Peter's sensitive hearing and made him wince and squeeze his eyes shut. Opening one eye slightly, he gave the laughing boy an exasperated look.

He could have easily had the three bigger boys at his mercy. He could have had them sobbing on the floor in but seconds – or _worse_ , he could have seriously harmed them. But while he technically could have done it, he _never would have_ and he well knew it – Maximillian, Brayden and Francis were running their mouths like the immature teenagers they were, but their immaturity wasn't a reason enough for Peter to hurt them.

They didn't truly understand what they were doing, Peter wanted to believe. Maximillian was compensating for his general lack of self-confidence and his friends were trying to impress the other two – it was a complicated game of social power and peer pressure – and Peter – the seemingly harmless, nerdy Peter Parker – was a convenient target for their aggressions, or at least he had become one since it had become generally known that Mr. Stark had taken an interest in him.

While Mr. Stark's friendship had made Peter cooler in the eyes of some of the girls, some of the boys had become outright hostile towards him, Maximillian among them. Apparently it was a cause for much envy to have Iron Man as your friend and some of Peter's schoolmates – like Maximillian – were going to great lengths to demonstrate how _very little_ they cared and how _very little_ it mattered to them that Mr. Stark liked Peter enough to show up at the school's science fairs but hadn't ever even attempted to talk to them when he had been there. The way Peter had suddenly become more popular among the girls was another reason for boys like Maximillian to dislike Peter.

Peter hadn't told about the bullying to Mr. Stark because he didn't want Mr. Stark to feel bad and he hadn't told Aunt May because he didn't want Aunt May to storm into the school as she likely would have done if she had believed that someone was giving Peter a hard time. Basically, Peter had told no-one, but it wasn't like he wasn't used to keeping secrets, was it. He could deal with one more secret just fine, couldn't he.

"That's hardly the _only_ reason, Francis," Maximillian was saying. "My mom says that Parker's gold digger of an aunt has a thing for Stark. And Stark, as everyone knows, has a thing for easy chicks - he's nice to Parker only because he wants to get it on with Parker's aunt."

Maximillian's mother, Teresa Smith-Cunningham was even more unlikeable than his son and Aunt May's unexpected friendship with Mr. Stark – rich, powerful, handsome, intelligent bachelor – had stroke a jealous chord in the overall nasty woman, married though she was. If Teresa Smith-Cunningham had been unpleasant to Aunt May before, she had been nothing sort of cruel as of late. Just like Peter, Aunt May had come to the decision to not tell Mr. Stark about it and she had repeatedly reminded Peter to not say anything about it to Mr. Stark, to never let Mr. Stark know that his presence in their life was causing them problems – _"It would make him feel bad, Peter, and goodness only knows that he doesn't need that on top of everything."_

Peter could only agree with that.

" _And don't you let Maximillian provoke you in any manner,"_ Aunt May had said on more than one account. _"I'm sure he can be as mean as his mother, but don't you stoop down to his level, Peter. If he says anything mean to you about me and Tony, just ignore it and eventually he will get bored and leave you be."_

Despite of promising Aunt May to do just that, Peter couldn't now just stand there silently when both Aunt May and Mr. Stark were being insulted.

"Leave my aunt out of this!" he therefore said, flushed with anger, jabbing Maximillian in the broad chest with his forefinger, although he was sure to be mindful of his strength.

Around them, the hallway had fallen silent and he could sense the way Liz Allan had come closer and was now looking right at him – he resisted the urge to look in her direction in turn.

"And don't talk about Mr. Stark like that. They are both good human beings and you're only making yourself sound like a clueless idiot!"

Max sneered at him down his nose, folding his arms. Brayden looked from Maximillian to Francis as if to coax what kind of a reaction he should have had, settling for plucking at the scab on his chin.

"Speaking of Stark," put in Francis in a mocking tone, ignoring the warning look Peter threw in his direction, "why are you at school, Parker? Stark has been missing for days now, hasn't he, and when a missing person has been gone for twenty-four hours, they're as good as dead – everyone knows that – so shouldn't you be at home planning your speech for Stark's funeral?"

And that was it. Peter was done. He was done with these bullies who dared to insult Aunt May and talk about Mr. Stark's situation in such an impassive, mocking manner. Peter was done wasting his time at school with these people when he should have been out there looking for Mr. Stark. He was _done_. He would skip all the lessons all the way up to university if that was what it would take to find Mr. Stark! He would even let Aunt May in on his Spider-Man secret, but he would not – _he would not_ – spend a minute longer at school with Maximillian, Francis and Brayden pretending to be just a regular student when he needed to be out there looking for Mr. Stark, when he had the _responsibility_ to use his powers for good, for a friend.

"Like they would let Parker give a speech at Stark's funeral!"

"That's enough, Maximillian!" put in Liz's voice sharply. "Do you even hear what you're saying? Someone Peter cares about is missing and you rub it in his face? How dare you!"

She pushed her way pass the staring students and came to stand right next to Maximillian with her arms akimbo, glaring up at Maximillian's considerably taller form, her white handbag thrown carelessly over her shoulder.

"Ooh, a white knight in a shining armor," Maximillian said, prompting Francis and Brayden to snigger. "Figures that Parker would need a girl to rescue him."

Liz's glare seemed to intensify.

"Shut up," she said. "No-one here wants to listen to you for a moment longer, so just shut up."

Peter could have handled the situation by himself just fine, but his heart nevertheless jumped a bit at the sight of Liz caring enough to come to his defence. It was brave of her to do - she, like Peter, wanted to do the right thing - and while he stood there, shaking with anger, embarrassed to be seen in such a situation by all his peers, her act made him feel less alone and he appreciated what she was trying to do for him.

Trutfully, Peter was more shaken than he was letting on. Francis and Maximillian had managed to hit him straight to where it hurt the most, straight to his fears, his nightmares, and Peter couldn't bring himself to think of their comments about funeral speeches. The horrible possibility that Mr. Stark might not ever come back to his Tower alive had been a constant weight in his mind since Thursday morning when Aunt May had woken him up telling him that Mr. Stark had been kidnapped. Since Thursday when Peter had seen the images of a tortured Mr. Stark, he had been having nightmares in which Mr. Stark was crying for his help, crying for Spider-Man, crying for Peter, and Peter would wander in complete darkness, desperate, hearing Mr. Stark but never seeing him, never finding him, and he would startle awake with an urgent feeling that he needed to get up and do something

what

 _what!_

to help Mr. Stark.

To have his nightmares, his fears, his worry thrown at his face in the school's hallway carelessly, nonchalantly - just because his bullies were immature and petty and unsure of themselves and just because they tried to make themselves feel more powerful by teaming up against Peter - it made something in Peter's heart freeze over, something cold tighten its grasp around his stomach even while he was burning with anger at their impudence, at the way they dared to talk about Mr. Stark like he was... like he was...

Like he wouldn't come back home.

None of these were things Peter would have wanted Maximillian, Francis and Brayden to know about, though, so instead he said in a low voice,

"You just crossed the line, guys, and if Mr. Stark won't make it back home, I'll remember this moment and I'll make sure that you won't forget this either. Ever."

It was silent in the hallway. No-one spoke and it was as if people around them were holding their breaths, waiting to see what would happen next. The note of his words and the look in Peter's eyes must have been dangerous indeed as even Maximillian looked taken aback.

With one last glare at the taller boys, Peter turned to Liz, looking at her the best he could from the three large bodies blocking her from his sight. Rubbing the nape of his neck, feeling all of a sudden a bit awkward, he offered her a shaky smile over Francis' shoulder.

"Uh, hey, Liz, about last Thursday…" he began rather stiffly. "I'm really sorry that I didn't text you that I couldn't make it to our meeting after school."

With her gaze now focused on Peter rather than Maximillian, her eyes were full of sympathy and she gave him a soft smile.

"That's all right," she assured him. "I read the news about… I mean, I heard that Tony Stark had been kidnapped and I knew that you would have other things in your mind. I'm not mad or anything, so don't worry about it."

Fear and worry had been Peter's constant companions since Mr. Stark had gone missing and the relief he now felt – relief that she wasn't mad at him, relief that he hadn't completely messed things up with her – was as welcoming as cooling wind in a hot day.

"If you still want to, we could meet up today after school?"

"That'd be really nice," admitted Peter, stifling the feeling of longing, "but I honestly can't make it. Perhaps some other time."

She looked disappointed, and while Peter was sorry for disappointing her, he couldn't come to regret his decision because locating and saving Mr. Stark was now his number one priority and not even meeting up with Liz Allan could compare to that.

Conscious of all the jealous glares ( _"Did Liz Allan just ask that nerd out?"_ ), disbelieving stares ( _"Did that nerd really just ditch Liz Allan?"_ ) and curious looks he was getting from the students around them, Peter pushed pass Maximillian, ignoring the look of startled surprise on Maximillian's face when he shoved the bigger boy aside with no difficulty at all. Both Brayden and Francis, equally startled, made room for him as he made his way pass by them towards the entrance door – the look he shot at the two boys must have been quite fierce and threatening indeed.

"Where are you going?" Liz asked him, hurrying to walk beside him as he rounded the corner and left the staring students behind. "You're not skipping classes because of those three jerks, are you? Don't let them get to you, Peter – they are just that, _jerks_."

"I'm not leaving because of them, no."

Quickly coming up with a believable lie since he couldn't go blurting out that Spider-Man would be going to search for Mr. Stark, school or no school, Peter added, "I've just got too many things on my mind. I'm awfully worried for Mr. Stark, Liz. I… need to go home."

She bit her lip and came to a halt when Peter pushed the second set of glass doors open. Cool air of early October sneaked inside and quickly embraced him from head to toe, bringing with it the fresh earthy scent of rain, and Liz shivered in her short dress, wrapping her arms around her torso.

"I understand," she said softly. "I'll... take notes and I'll share them with you later. I've actually been taking notes for you all week. I'll give them to you when you feel like you're ready to come back to school."

"Thanks, Liz. I'd appreciate that."

"I hope they will find Mr. Stark soon."

"So do I..."

The asphalt schoolyard was full of puddles and their surface was rippling with steadily falling rain drops. Peter turned his back to her glowing face and the warmth of the school building and stepped into the rain, into the misery, determined to do all he could to find Mr. Stark and to bring him home.

"Bye, Liz."

"Bye, Peter."

Later, he would come to wish that he had said something more to her by way of a farewell.

* * *

Much to his surprise, there was a black van – gleaming in the rain – with the logo of the Stark Industries painted on it waiting for him at the school's parking lot. When Peter walked pass by it towards the bus stop, the hood pulled over his head to protect him from the constant drizzle, the door of the van slid open and a sturdy woman wearing the green uniform of the Stark Industries' postal staff quickly climbed out of the van.

"Mr. Parker!" the woman cried, hurrying towards him in a slightly waddling gait, her shoes splashing the water of the puddles. "Mr. Parker, please, wait!"

He came to a halt, already fishing for his phone out of his pocket to check if Rhodes had sent him a text telling him that something new had come up, that he was sending a van to pick him up – only to realize that, no, of course Rhodes wouldn't be sending vans to pick up Spider-Man at Peter's school – Rhodes didn't know who Spider-Man was, after all, and he wouldn't be sending anyone to pick up Peter Parker if he needed Spider-Man. Indeed, there were no new messages, not from Rhodes or anyone else, and Peter slid the phone back in his pocket, wiping the rain drops off the screen as he did so.

"Mr. P-Parker," the woman panted when she reached him, her short brown hair plastered on her forehead due to the rain.

Looking at her closer, Peter recognized her from the security footage as the unfortunate staff member who had delivered the letter - the threat - to Mr. Stark on Wednesday evening, the woman to whom Mr. Stark had been talking to while he had been on the phone with Peter but moments before his kidnapping. A glance at her name tag now confirmed that, yes, this was indeed Eleanore Jenkins, the same woman who had delivered the letter but hadn't been able to tell the police where the said letter had come from.

"Yes, I'm that Eleanore Jenkins," she now answered Peter's enquiry, wringing her hands, sounding close to tears. "And no, even if I am here to pick you up, I'm not a driver - officially, anyway - but ever since I d-delivered that _blasted letter_ to Mr. Stark, Miss Potts has had me to do all kinds of odd jobs, likely as a punishment – as if it wasn't enough when the head of my department gave me a formal reprimand for not following the normal procedure of Mr. Stark's post delivery. I'm not a smart woman, Mr. Parker, but I'm _trying_ , I'm doing my best."

Peter had seen the footage of her questioning and he now recalled the way Miss Jenkins had begun to cry, asking the detectives if she was going to lose her job, if Mr. Stark was dead because of her, and he couldn't help but feel sympathy for her – she couldn't have known what the letter contained, she wasn't to blame, and if Miss Potts had in all actuality been punishing her for that, it was a terribly unfair and unprofessional thing of her to do.

"It wasn't your fault," Peter tried to console the upset woman. "I mean, you couldn't have known."

"Yes, well, but what can you do," Eleanore Jenkins said with a sniff, wiping her eyes. "I'm really sorry to bother you, sir, but Miss Potts has sent me to fetch you to the Stark Tower."

Peter frowned, looking from the woman at the black van, wariness creeping up his spine.

"Why?"

"I wouldn't know, sir," Miss Jenkins said with a wince. "My job isn't to know things but to do as I am told, especially after the last fiasco I caused when I didn't do as I was told, with the letter and all… I am, nevertheless, really sorry to interrupt your school day."

"Don't worry about it, Miss Jenkins," said Peter, although his thoughts were already elsewhere.

If Miss Potts needed him at the Tower, it meant that something new _had_ come up, something new that Miss Potts needed Peter Parker for, not Spider-Man. Peter wracked his brain, trying to think of what it could be that she needed him for, but try as he might, he couldn't come up with anything.

"I suppose we better go, then," he said and allowed Miss Jenkins to lead him to the van.

He would be going to the Tower anyway, so getting a ride there would be quite convenient. If something new had come up, Peter would answer Miss Pott's questions - but this time he wouldn't let anyone keep Spider-Man from searching for Mr. Stark for long, so she needed to ask her questions quickly.

Mr. Stark had been missing for over eight days and Peter was now determined to let nothing or no-one prevent him from focusing on his search for Mr. Stark. Peter wouldn't be going back to school until he had found Mr. Stark, not anymore, and if - when - Aunt May would call him to ask about his whereabouts, Peter would tell her the truth, he would tell her that he was Spider-Man and that he was thefore looking for Mr. Stark and that he needed her to understand that Mr. Stark's life was now more important than anything she wanted to yell at Peter about and he would tell her to not worry, that he would look after himself and that he would bring Mr. Stark home as well. Aunt May would likely freak out, but if Peter didn't now do all that he could to help Mr. Stark, how would he be able to live with himself if something fatal was to happen to Mr. Stark - and what would Aunt May later think of him if he didn't help Mr. Stark just for the sake of keeping his identity a secret from her!

Thinking of all that, Peter climbed up into the van to ride shotgun, while Miss Jenkins took her seat next to him.

"Please, fasten your seat belt, Mr. Parker," she told him, turning the key in the ignition.

Peter did as he was told, but just as the seat belt locked with a clip, he heard an odd rustling sound which immediately drew his attention. It was a faint sound, barely audible from the sound of rain - likely not audible to anyone with no super hearing - but it was there, and while he initially confused it with the sound of rain drops hitting the car, he soon realized that it wasn't only coming from above him but from _all around him_.

That was as far as Peter managed to think before several glass scorpions were on him, swarming up his legs - pop, pop, pop, they dropped onto him from above - instantly stinging him, and even though Peter's reaction was as instant as their appearance from the hidden compartments of the car, he was too slow even with his spider reflexes, and the seat belt - clearly enhanced, like the seat belts in all Stark vehicles due to the company of super enhanced people Mr. Stark often kept- was unyielding and kept his trashing body in place, and while he shot web at the scorpions, there were now too many of them crawling all over him, he couldn't even see his legs from all the glass scorpions.

But a moment later, he could no longer move - he had been paralyzed, and the terror that now seized him was uncomparable to anything he had felt before. He screamed, _screamed_ , SCREAMED in his mind, but not a sound left him.

They drove in silence for what felt like the longest moments of Peter's life. He could still feel the scorpions moving around on his limp form, on his body that was hunched over, held up only by the seat belt, following along with the movements of the van listlessly, out of his control. He was scared and felt that he had let Mr. Stark down: Jenkins was likely planning on using him as levarage against Mr. Stark, Peter came to the conclusion rather hysterically. Perhaps she was going to _torture_ Peter in order to force Mr. Stark to tell her of Mr. Rogers' whereabouts. Whatever her plan was, Peter had let Mr. Stark down by falling victim to her trap - and now they both were in trouble.

"Don't worry, Mr. Parker, the paralysis is only temporary," Miss Jenkins broke the silence eventually and Peter was disgusted to feel her hand patting his shoulder only to realize that she was actually petting one of the scorpions, not him.

Gone was the upset woman and in her stead, there was a cool voice with no emotion, a calculating, intelligent voice, and Peter felt sick with the knowledge that she had played them all, she was in on Mr. Stark's kidnapping and _she had played them all_ \- she had likely brought the letter into the Tower herself and she had now kidnapped Peter, too, to use him against Mr. Stark.

Although, Peter concluded, she didn't know that he was Spider-Man, did she. She didn't know he was Spider-Man and that was a great advantage for Mr. Stark and him, to put it mildly. After all, Miss Jenkins was now in all probability taking Peter straight to Mr. Stark - she was taking _Spider-Man_ to Mr. Stark and wasn't that exactly what Peter had wanted all along, to find Mr. Stark!

Actually, now that he thought about it, his kidnapping could actually be a step forward, if you looked at it positively (Peter always tried to look at everything positively) - perhaps this was exactly what would be needed to help Mr. Stark. The kidnappers were now taking Spider-Man straight to Mr. Stark and Spider-Man was going to save Mr. Stark and wasn't that just a fun turn for the events!

Peter might have chuckled had he not been paralyzed and _absolutely terrified_.

* * *

When they eventually came to a stop, Peter felt a sting in his arm as Jenkins injected him with something. Gradually everything went black and silent and he lost consciousness.

* * *

Peter became aware of the cold ground beneath him and someone talking to him in a soft voice while rubbing his back in a soothing manner. He listened to the voice for a while before he was able to put a name to it - Mr. Stark.

Mr. Stark!

As soon as he realized who it was that was talking to him, it all came back to Peter - Mr. Stark's kidnapping, his own kidnapping.

While Peter had been unconscious, Jenkins must have brought him to wherever Mr. Stark was being kept and now he was there - wherever he was - with Mr. Stark. He was lying there on the ground in the recovery position while Mr. Stark was rubbing his back and murmuring in a soothing voice, "- if it's the last thing I'll ever do! Fucking will tear the bastards to pieces for this and I'll blast that fucking Scorpion, and if those motherfucking-"

And there was so much cursing that Peter felt himself flushing - yeah, while Mr. Stark's tone was soothing, his words were anything but.

Peter forced his eyes open, despite of how heavy his lids felt. Blinking, he took in the man above him. Mr. Stark was kneeling beside him and Peter felt his blood freezing at the sight of him: Mr. Stark's face and hair were _caked_ with dry blood as if someone had held his head in a bucket full of it and there had been droplets of blood running down his chest, too, all the way down to his bare belly. Mr. Stark still wasn't wearing a shirt, just like he hadn't been in the images Peter had seen of his torture, and his trousers were now even more torn. He was pale and his back was hunched, he was favoring his left side as if it was paining him, but his eyes were _smoldering with hatred_ , with fury, and the hand that wasn't rubbing Peter's back was clenched in a white-knuckled fist on his tigh.

"I've come to rescue you," Peter tried to comfort Mr. Stark, his voice hoarse, and Mr. Stark's eyes shot to his face.

For a moment, Mr. Stark stared at him blankly as if he couldn't quite believe that Peter was looking up at him, as if he couldn't believe that Peter was now talking to him. Then Mr. Stark blinked and croaked, " _What?_ "

"I've come to rescue you, Mr. Stark!" Peter told the man again and Mr. Stark let out a startled bark of laughter, never once taking his gaze off of Peter.

He must have been terribly traumatized due to his experiences, Peter understood, and quite confused by Peter's appearance.

"Don't worry," he therefore said with even more emphasis, reaching out to give Mr. Stark's hand a reassuring squeeze. "We'll be getting out of here, like, real soon! As soon as I can, you know, stand up."

* * *

The cell was cold and dark and filled with unpleasant smells varying from the dank smell of earth to the smells of urine and blood, but the worst part was nevertheless the constant roaring coming from above them - the roar of the Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Stark had told him, and while it was sort of cool to be beneath the ocean bed, the constant reminder that they could drown at any second was suffocating, no pun intended.

"Couldn't get us a better room," Mr. Stark told him apologetically. "You know how it is with these cheap resorts - doesn't matter how early you book a room, the facilities will still be disappointing."

"We should leave them a bad online review," Peter agreed. "'One star: Asked to have a room with a view of the sea - were given a room beneath the ocean instead.'

Mr. Stark chuckled.

"No bathroom, terrible room service..." he listed. "The bad review alone won't be enough - I'll need to have Pepper call the manager."

They were now sitting side by side, Peter and Mr. Stark, leaning against the stone wall, their arms brushing. Peter still wasn't able to stand up and he didn't yet have the strength to pull the bars apart either, not nearly enough for the two of them to leave the cell, so there was now little for them to do but to wait for him to regain his strength.

"Must have been pretty powerful stuff they injected me with," Peter mused out loud. "Because I feel now really faint and freezing, like really faint and freezing. You know, kind of like I'd lost a lot of blood recently."

Shivering, Peter hugged his legs, and Mr. Stark - silent and looking grim - wrapped an arm over his shoulders, drawing him closer to his side.

As they sat there, side by side, Peter told Mr. Stark of Eleanore Jenkins and how she had lured him into the car. Mr. Stark was dismayed to hear that at least one member of his own staff was behind the kidnapping, but he didn't look surprised, just like he didn't look surprised when Peter told him of the image files and how they had received them in the Tower. Peter told Mr. Stark that it had been over a week since his disappearance and he told him that Rhodes had called Rogers in and that Rogers and "Rogers' people" - as Mr. Stark referred to Barton, Romanov, Wilson, Maximoff and Lang - had come to the Tower and were now trying to find him.

"Or rather, 'us', I guess, considering," Peter said with a sigh. "I'm sorry for letting you down, Mr. Stark. I should've been smarter than to let Jenkins catch me like that."

The arm around him tightened its hold.

"'S not your fault, Peter."

"They're going to use me against you," Peter blurted out, unable to hold the truth of the matter in anymore. "If I don't regain my strength in time, they'll use me against you and they'll try to make you tell Mr. Rogers' location to them! They're going to use me against you."

Mr. Stark didn't say anything, so Peter continued, "But don't worry, Mr. Stark, because we still have one great advantage on our side: they don't know I'm Spider-Man."

Instead of agreeing with Peter that that was, indeed, a great advantage, Mr. Stark swallowed and closed his eyes, turning his head momentarily away from Peter as if to hide whatever emotion was now running across his face. When he turned back to Peter, he looked tired and worried and quite unlike himself.

"They do know you're Spider-Man, Peter," Mr. Stark said in a low voice, gently. "They know you're Spider-Man and that's exactly why you are now here."

Peter stared at Mr. Stark.

"How could they?" he asked with disbelief. "How could they know? We've been so careful."

Mr. Stark sighed and answered Peter's questions.

* * *

 _A/N: I guess we'll have to wait till the next chapter to hear what Tony has to say... In the meanwhile, as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts!_


	9. Tony: The Reunion

After Tony had put his "blessed initials" on the message to Rhodes, his kidnappers took him back to his cell and left him there in complete blackness with only the roar of the Atlantic Ocean for company.

Exhaustion claimed him shortly after, and when he eventually woke up to Henson, Gregory, Johnson, Mole, WD, KT and FS barging in, Tony couldn't tell how long it had been since he had fallen asleep. Groggy, Tony didn't put up much of a fight, allowing instead the men to cuff his hands behind his back while he laid on the cold ground on his bare front, shivering, going along with it all in an uncharacteristically placid manner, if one didn't count the way he kept kicking Gregory in the groin, more or less accidentally.

(Well, less. Quite a lot less.)

(Okay, yes, he did it completely on purpose.)

HL was photographing Tony again and the flashlight of the camera reminded Tony of lightnings and made him miss Thor. He wished he had had his sunglasses on him because he so didn't feel like getting photographed just then and the sunglasses always helped him to put some mental distance between him and the paparazzis trying to blind him with their flashlights in the most inconvenient of situations.

Plus, the sunglasses made him look cool. Or rather, even cooler, and there was no situation where he didn't want to look cool. So, yeah, sunglasses would've been great.

"The Priestess is coming," Henson told him once the men had lifted Tony up to his feet and Tony was standing in the middle of his cell with the cool, sharp blade of Mole's knife pressed between his bare shoulder blades, not quite but almost breaking the skin.

"Everything needs to be perfect for her arrival and we need to be waiting for her in the altar hall."

Henson's voice was a curious mix of excitement and trepidation.

"How about you'll go and I'll wait here?" Tony suggested even as WD and FS, with his tattooed arms bulging, were already dragging him into the hallway. "But leave the door open this time, will you. I'd like to air my room out, so to speak. And who is this 'Priestess' anyway?"

"She, ahh," Henson breathed out, as they began to walk towards the altar hall, their steps echoing in the hallway. "She is a marvel of a human being. She is everything you are not, Mr. Stark, everything _we_ are not. In one word, she is perfection. I am proud to say that I am related by blood to the Priestess."

"It will be an honor for you to meet my sister-in-law, Stark," Gregory said in his deep voice, "and if you forget that and refuse to show her the respect she is due, I will break your fingers one after another."

The Salivating Scorpions were starting to sound like a family cult, what with Gregory and Henson being married and the Priestess – whoever she might had been – apparently being Henson's sister. Tony wondered if the kidnappers were all somehow related, but refrained from asking, thinking it unlikely that he would get a reply other than, possibly, a slap.

Tony didn't want to get slapped. Regardless of the bravado he was putting on, he feared pain and was more than ready for this whole kidnapping ordeal to be over already.

"Uh, excuse you, but I _always_ show people the respect they are _due_ ," he nevertheless had to say to Gregory over his shoulder, and had his hands not been handcuffed behind his back, he would had showed a certain finger to make a point. "It's hardly my fault if some aren't due any."

"Just so you know, _Stark_ ," Gregory spat his name like a curse, making a point of kicking Tony in the lower back in such a manner that Tony stumbled forward and would have fallen if it hadn't been for WD's steadying hands, "the moment we have found your hiding friend, you are a dead man, and your death will be long and painful, I'll make sure of that."

"You sure know how to make someone feel special," Tony muttered through gritted teeth. "And it's flattering that you consider me such a threat that the whole gang had to come and get me from my cell – I'm touched, guys, really."

The Salivating Scorpions took Tony into the altar hall where the altar still stood in the middle of it all, silent and imposing as always. Tony couldn't help tensing up at the sight of it.

"Scared, Stark?" Mole chuckled, having apparently noticed Tony's involuntary reaction. "I'm glad we've managed to make an impression."

"I wouldn't call it 'making an impression' as much as I'd call it 'making a mistake'," said Tony. "I've said it before, but this really will not end well for you, so you could do the smart thing and let me go now before anything irreversible happens."

"My Dearest was in such a good mood today when he woke up," remarked Henson from where he was standing in the middle of the hall, cleaning his glasses on a white handkerchief. "You see, Mr. Stark, he told me that he had had a lovely dream – one in which he was given the permission to cut your tongue right off. He was smiling in his sleep, I've rarely seen him looking as peaceful. So you just keep on talking and I just might let him fulfill his fantasy."

Tony made a face, but this time kept his mouth shut.

While the rest of the men began to prepare the altar hall so that it would "meet the needs of the Priestess", Mole remained by Tony's side with his Sig Sauer at the ready and a knife pointed in Tony's direction at all times. Tony had a feeling that the man was just waiting for an excuse to slash him with the blade – it had started to look to Tony like Mole enjoyed hurting him, or perhaps the man just enjoyed the feeling of power he could have over Tony by having him at his mercy. Tony _was_ at his kidnappers' mercy and they all knew it, but still, while most of the kidnappers hurt Tony to get information out of him or to punish him, Mole was the one who seemed to find it particularly pleasant to hurt Tony and went out his way to use any excuse to make him cry out loud.

"Put more sand there," Henson directed Johnson and KT, gesturing towards the foot of the altar, and Johnson emptied a bucket full of sand on the pointed spot while KT spread it all evenly out with a rake. The smell of sand and dust soon reached Tony's nostrils and he wrinkled up his nose – the smell had become equally as unpleasant to him as it had become familiar during his kidnapping.

The sand was there to absorb any blood that might pour down the altar onto the ground, Tony knew, since he had laid on the altar on his blood often enough to see the men spreading out the sand around the altar. Apparently, a bloodied stone ground could get terribly slippery without the sand there to absorb the blood, and Henson, as he himself put it, "took work safety seriously".

"Did Her Sainthood tell you why she is coming, sweetheart?" Tony heard Gregory asking and looked to his left where Gregory and Henson were standing side by side watching FS and WD lighting up lanterns here and there in the hall so the entire space was lit up like for a fest. "She's welcome, of course, more than anyone else, but I find it surprising that she would decide to come here now, of all times, when the plan has barely been set to motion – Spider is yet to be caught!"

"I agree," Henson murmured. The lenses flashed in the lantern light as he adjusted the glasses on his nose. "It's peculiar indeed. Something must have happened, something unexpected, but she wouldn't answer my questions. She told us to just wait for her arrival."

"Perhaps she wants to see Stark. You know how she is when it comes to Stark nowada-"

Gregory cut himself off when he met Tony's eyes, seeming to realize that Tony was listening in on their conversation. Which was, admittedly, a bit rude, yes, but under the circumstances also quite understandable and Tony, for one, didn't blame himself any. Gregory, unfortunately, didn't seem to share the sentiment and let out a low growl instead, his dark glare locked on Tony.

"What are you staring at, Stark?" he grumbled and continued, not waiting for an answer, "Get on your knees! A worthless creature like you doesn't deserve to stand in this sacred hall."

Instead of giving Tony the chance to obey Gregory's order, Mole – having finally been given the excuse to hurt Tony he had seemingly been waiting for – kicked Tony's legs from beneath him and Tony hit the ground hard, managing only just so to turn slightly so he fell on his side rather than on his face. He yelped when his unprotected side hit the ground, and the men around him chuckled, Mole loudest of all.

"Teaches him to not listen to private conversations," said Gregory, sounding pleased for once, but Tony didn't get the chance to even look at the man, let alone to make his own remarks, as a swift kick hit him in the back and the force behind it had him falling onto his stomach with a grunt.

"Look at you," Mole's voice came from above him, mocking, and another kick accompanied the words, "all muddy and filthy like the pig you are! Why don't you give us a little squeal, Stark? Come on, squeal, piggy! I want the little pig to entertain me."

"If you want to be entertained by a pig, go make faces at a mirror," snapped Tony, mindful of his bruised side as he wriggled up to his knees – not an easy feat by any means, considering his hands were still cuffed tightly behind his back.

He tried to get up to his feet, but Gregory, Johnson, Mole and FS were all pointing at him with knives, telling him to stay on his knees, which left Tony little other option but to remain in his position, some three yards away from the altar, facing it with his back to the main entrance.

Soon after, Henson began to pace and grow visibly restless and undecided which, in turn, made Tony feel ever growing trepidation – he did not want to meet this Priestess who could make even his kidnappers nervous. Whatever the Priestess' name actually was, her function was clearly to be some kind of a leader, the cult leader of the Salivating Scorpions, and her status seemed to be higher in the cult than even Henson's who, so far, had seemed to be acting as the group leader.

"I should go greet her by the well, above ground, I mean," Henson kept saying. "I think. I mean, she would like that, yeah? Surely. It wouldn't hurt, would it."

"Yes, perhaps you should go," Gregory voiced his agreement in his grumbling manner. "Take someone with you. I don't like you going to the tunnels alone with the Scorpion lurking in the shadows."

"That's dangerously close to blasphemy, my dear," Henson said and Tony saw him fixing Gregory with a look, although the man didn't stop his pacing.

Gregory bent his head.

"I meant no offence to Her Venomness, but it would still sooth my mind if you took someone with you."

"The Scorpion wouldn't harm _me_! My sister is Her Priestess, after all, and I have been loyal to the Scorpion since before the death of our parents. But very well, Dearest, I will take a few men with me."

So saying, Henson motioned for Mole and FS to follow him which the pair also did, complying instantly, and soon the trio disappeared into the blackness of the hallway. For the remaining kidnappers – as well as for Tony – there was then little to do but to wait for the men to return – along with the Priestess.

Tony wasn't looking forward to meeting the Priestess in the slightest. He hadn't forgotten what Gregory had said earlier, _"Perhaps she just wants to see Stark. You know how she is when it comes to Stark,"_ and Tony tried not to think of what the Priestess' appearance would mean to him, what the Priestess' presence might cause the men to do to him. He didn't want to come up with reasons for why the Priestess was coming, he didn't want to… _didn't want to_.

What he did want was to see the Sun, to feel it on his skin, to fly in his suit because that was when he felt most at free. He wanted to be _above_ the ground, not beneath an ocean. He wanted to banter with Rhodes, have Vision taste cranberries for the first time, play video games with Peter…

In short, he wanted to be at home.

But if he could get everything he wanted, Tony thought bitterly, the man he had seen as a childhood hero and, later, his great friend would never had punched his leather-clad fist into Tony's chest to pull out his heart only to drop it onto the unforgiving Siberian ground, where it shattered and froze and now laid in pieces, cold and forgotten. If Tony could get everything he wanted, Steve would not had walked away with Barnes, Bruce would not had left, Ultron would not had turned into a threat.

Tony's parents would not had died.

Would not had been _murdered_.

The point was, Tony didn't always get what he wanted, against the popular belief, and so there he now was, hands cuffed behind his back, yearning for sunlight and for freedom, surrounded by people who only saw him as the means to feed their scorpion. So no, he didn't _want_ to think what the Priestess might do to him, but that's what he _did_ think anyway, there was no way around it:

It was rather fair to assume that the Priestess would not have warm feelings towards him, considering everything the cult she was the leader of had made him endure so far. Since the altar had been prepared, Tony knew it was likely that he would be made bleed again. Perhaps the Priestess would want to be the one to cut him. Perhaps she would want to taste his blood herself; one couldn't know with these people. Whatever the case would be, the Priestess' presence would undoubtedly mean more pain to Tony in whatever form it would present itself.

Fidgeting, Tony sighed to himself and glared at the altar and the sand around it as if they were to blame for the circumstances.

* * *

They waited in the altar hall for the Priestess for what must have been at least an hour, for long enough for HL to stop photographing Tony and to sit down on the ground to browse through the pictures he already had on his camera, for long enough for WD to take pity on Tony and to come loosen the handcuffs, even if he didn't take them off entirely.

"You'll behave yourself for now, son, won't you?" WD asked once the handcuffs had been loosened. Tony nodded his head and WD sighed, giving Tony's shoulder a pat. "I hope you mean that, dear heart, because I truly don't like seeing you getting hurt. It's barbaric and I am a civilized man – my father was a priest, you know, and I took his ethic lessons to my heart at a young age."

WD was older than the rest of the Salivating Scorpions, and both his skin and hair – and even his eyes – looked even grayer in the lantern light than they usually looked in torch light. Older WD might have been, but in no way was he frail: his biceps were the size of Tony's thighs and his muscular thighs the size of Tony's waste, and while he had taken a habit of calling Tony "son" and "dear heart", that didn't stop him from holding Tony's head underwater until Tony was a sobbing mess.

It was likely calculated, Tony knew, the way WD would offer him comfort like none of the other kidnappers did, the way WD would always say how sorry he was for hurting Tony, the way WD would make sure that Tony was given something to eat and drink, that his cell was emptied of excrements regularly.

They were likely trying to make Tony get attached to the grandfatherly WD so that Tony would become more co-operative, and the sad part was, it was working: whenever Tony saw that it would be WD torturing him, this time – instead of Gregory, who took his frustration out on Tony, or KT, who never looked Tony in the eye and seemed to have forgotten that Tony was a human being, or Mole, who had gotten an erection from torturing Tony, a few times – Tony felt something akin to relief, and once or twice he had come close to thanking the man for being the one to burn him with cigarettes. That was some Stockholm syndrome shit right there, and before retiring, Doctor Holmberg would end up being able to buy himself a few yachts with all the money Tony would be throwing in his way for all their sessions.

Subtly, while they kept on waiting and he kept on clenching and unclenching his fists for the sake of blood circulation in his hands, Tony took in the gear of the five men in the hall with him. He counted five Sig Sauers, eight knives and two hand grenades – he was, he had to admit, a bit overpowered for the time being, especially with his hands cuffed behind his back, but at least none of his limbs were broken and he was able to walk on his own, more or less.

Besides, Tony figured, he doubted any of the men would risk using a hand grenade or firing their weapons underground where the bullets could easily ricochet from the stone walls and hit an unintended target, possibly the shooter himself, and where a hand grenade could potentially end up breaking the ceiling and causing the ocean to pour in. Of all the weapons, therefore, only the knives were a real threat to Tony for as long as he remained in the stone halls underground. On the ground level, the situation would naturally be quite different, as there nothing would prevent the men from shooting Tony.

All that in mind, Tony mused, if he wanted to escape, he would somehow have to keep out of the knife range and also manage to outrun his kidnappers, and then he would need to climb up the well in his weakened state and find a way to block its mouth from above, so the Salivating Scorpions wouldn't be able to follow him to the potato fields where he would be an easy target to aim at.

It was starting to look unlikely that Tony would make it out alive, even he had to admit that. He was helpless, as much he hated to admit that, but even if he could do little to help himself, perhaps he could at least prevent Peter from falling to the same fate:

Sure, the men had beaten Tony's body black and blue, but they _had not beaten him_. He had not given up and now that he knew that it was Peter the kidnappers were after, he was even more determined than before to not give in, to not give them any information, to not aid them in any way in finding Peter. If Tony was positive about one thing, it had to be the fact that he would not betray Peter, he would not reveal the boy's identity or location to anyone ever. He would take Spider-Man's identity to his grave with him, if he had to. He would let these men torture him senseless, but he would _not_ be putting Peter at their mercy. Not only because he cared about Peter, but also because he owed the boy as much for having pulled him along on the ride in the Carousel of Shit and Disappointments, otherwise known as Tony's life.

Hearing that it was _Peter_ the Salivating Scorpion were after – Peter of whom Tony had grown fond, Peter who was as good as Tony and Steve were not, Peter whose future Tony yearned to make _fucking brilliant_ – had made Tony desperate, and desperation had a way of making men do desperate things. The kidnappers had forced Tony in a corner, had made him desperate, and that, if anything, was a great way to guarantee that Tony was now

dangerous.

Tony was dangerous to a degree of being lethal, he was ready to do desperate things, and while they waited for The Priestess in the hall, Tony counted the weapons and made calculations on how to save Peter, on how to best guarantee Peter's safety – how to best dissolve this entire situation with the Salivating Scorpions, how to best eliminate their cult.

Tony's gaze landed on the hand grenade Johnson had attached on the vest he wore on top of his wetsuit. Tony didn't believe the man was intending to use the grenade underground and its function was probably to make Tony feel intimidated, but if, Tony mused, he himself managed to get his hands on some grenades or other explosives, he could try and take the whole place down for once and for all. All he would have to do was to find the right spot – the weakest spot in the underground compound – to set the explosives off and have the explosion weaken the structures enough to bring down a ceiling. The ocean would come pouring in and everyone underground would drown – Tony included, yes, but if he managed to take down the cult by eliminating its figure of worship, the Scorpion, and by drowning its key members, including Henson and this Priestess, Peter would be safe from the cult and wouldn't have to go through the torture Tony had had to endure.

There was a voice in Tony's head, sounding a lot like Rhodes, reminding him that he didn't want to die, that he wanted to live, but he ignored the voice, just like he always did when it came down to choosing a friend's life over his own. It wasn't his first rodeo, after all, and sacrificing himself in order to save Peter would be worth it.

And nope, Tony had never claimed that he was a good man. In fact, he was always rather clear that he was anything but a good man. So, yes, killing people in order to keep Peter safe would also be worth it and Tony wouldn't regret doing it.

Besides, Tony decided, perhaps the world would be all the better for his death. The death of the Merchant of Death would be a relief to many, after all, no matter that he hadn't been involved in the weapon business in years, and Steve would be relieved by his death, too, knowing that Tony would never again be coming after one James Barnes. Then there would be all the people and charitable organizations that would benefit from Tony's death, and while Rhodes and Vision and Peter and Pepper would mourn him, he had remembered them all in his will and the generous shares they would get would cheer them up again in no time.

All this in mind, Tony now knew what he needed to do. The next step was to get the means to put his plan to action.

* * *

Only the sudden stiffening of the men around Tony signaled the entrance of the Priestess. Tony hadn't heard the approaching steps, and because the entrance Henson, Mole and the Priestess had used was behind his back, he hadn't seen them entering either. When Gregory, WD, KT and Johnson however all of a sudden stiffened and when their gazes simultaneously shot towards the main entrance behind Tony, and when HL quickly climbed up to his feet with the camera at the ready, Tony knew without looking that the Priestess had finally arrived.

He craned his neck to take a look at her with a mix of trepidation and curiosity, and as soon as he saw her, recognition hit him instantly. Now, Tony didn't recognize the sturdy woman with the short brown hair per se, no, but what he _did_ recognize was the uniform she was wearing – the green uniform of the Stark Industries' postal staff. To have one of his own workers to be among the people behind his kidnapping wasn't the worst betrayal Tony had experienced, but it still felt like a punch in the gut, like something heavy had just landed on his shoulders, and when their eyes met, he made sure to give the Priestess a haughty look before rather pointedly turning his head away from her and looking straight ahead.

While Tony might not had recognized "Eleanore Jenkins", as her nametag read, she had clearly recognized him, judging from the sharpening of her gaze and the narrowing of her eyes. She now walked around Tony – Gregory and WD stood aside so she could come stand in front of him – and when they finally were face to face – or rather, Tony on his knees at her feet – a grin spread on her round face and she clapped her hands together in an excited manner, letting out a loud-pitched giggle. Behind her, Tony saw HL who was fingering his camera in a hesitant manner, looking from it to Jenkins, like he wasn't quite sure if he was allowed to take photographs or if he should wait for her permission first.

"Isn't this the dream of every employee everywhere?" Jenkins cried, gesturing wildly at Tony with the red Mora knife she was holding loosely in her hand. "To have their boss kneeling at their feet, bloody and broken? To have their boss at their mercy?"

The men around them murmured their agreements.

"Y-Yes, sister," said Henson from where he was standing behind Tony, and Tony was taken aback to hear the tremble in his soft voice – it sounded like Henson was scared of this woman, his sister, the Priestess. Eleanore Jenkins. Gregory seemed bothered by his husband's meek tone, too, for he kept shooting glances behind Tony, likely at Henson, while shifting his weight from one foot to another in an uneasy manner.

"I'm glad you find the situation satisfactory."

"Satisfactory?" Jenkins repeated like Henson had just told a great joke. "Ha! Not only 'satisfactory', as everything turned out better than I could have ever hoped for, brother dear. I'd call this _perfect_ rather than 'satisfactory'."

Still grinning widely, she turned her attention to Tony, regarding him in a rather close manner.

"Mr. Stark, we meet again," she then said, just as Tony asked, "Who, exactly, are you?"

They stared at each other for a few heartbeats, while the men around them stood still, looking on. The grin disappeared from Jenkins' face and she blinked furiously, her skin turning red from neck up – she clearly hadn't expected Tony to _not_ remember her and the fact that he didn't remember her was making her upset, despite of the fact that it wasn't at all uncommon for Tony to _not_ remember people.

"Oo-kay," Tony said slowly. "This is a bit awkward."

"I-" she said, frowning a little, clearing her throat. "I was the one to deliver you the letter from the Salivating Scorpions. I was the woman who was waiting for you near your elevator the evening when you were taken from your tower. Do you remember me now?"

Tony might had been a genius, but he _was_ terrible when it came to remembering people, and while he _did_ believe that she was speaking the truth – that he had met her, that she had been the one to give him the letter with threat against "SR" in it – he honestly couldn't recall her or place her face anywhere, although her looks did remind him of Happy Hogan a bit.

"Uh, sorry," Tony said with a grimace. "And again, _awkward_."

"But don't take this personally, okay?" he hurried to add. "I'm _terrible_ with people – everyone knows that – I'm, like, the worst people person ever. For example, I once got engaged to a country singer, but for the life of me I can't recall her name anymore (it was a spur of a moment kind of a thing, and I've forbidden everyone from telling me about that night, as I'm trying to let it come to me on its own – I enjoy a bit of a puzzle, you see – and I'm _fairly_ confident that her name was something like Belmura or Briganda or Belladonna or Brendarth, or possibly Katie). Then again, it was the early 2000's and, to be fair, those years are kind of a blur to me. Though people keep saying that I used to throw a mean party back then. Too bad I don't remember any of it myself, like, nada. Half a decade has been wiped out of my mind – can you believe that! In hindsight, I probably shouldn't had drunk as much as I d-"

Tony would have talked about the subject for longer, if it hadn't been for the knife Jenkins suddenly pressed against his Adam's apple. Prompted into silence by the knife, Tony held his tongue while Jenkins regarded him in silence for a few good minutes.

"No matter," she eventually said stiffly like she was trying to pretend that it didn't bother her that Tony couldn't remember her. "By the time I'm finished with you, Stark, you won't be able to get me out of your head. I will be your constant nightmare."

Having apparently said all she wanted to say, she withdrew the knife and turned her back to Tony, thus dismissing him, and marched to the altar. She studied the empty altar and the sand around it, and Tony could feel an icy hand wrapping its hand around his throat – whatever would come next, he just knew he wouldn't like it.

He tried to not fidget, not entirely successfully.

"Bring him here, Marshall," Jenkins gave the order and Tony winced, expecting to get hauled up by rough hands. That didn't happen, however, as Mole stepped pass him, ignoring him completely.

Tony hadn't seen Mole entering and when he had looked at Jenkins over his shoulder, his gaze hadn't landed on Mole, or Marshall, as the man apparently was called – therefore, he hadn't either noticed that Mole was carrying a body. Now that Mole did step into his line of sight, however, Tony could see a tall body in the man's arms. The brief moment of relief he had experienced due to Mole ignoring him and not taking him to the altar was immediately replaced by confusion – and trepidation on behalf of the unconscious person in Mole's hold.

The face of the body was blocked from Tony's sight by Mole's form and he only saw a pair of worn sneakers and gray, loosely fitting gym pants on the legs that swung limply in the rhythm of Mole's steps.

His gaze fixed on the shoes, Tony's world seemed to come to a halt and he was overcome with a cold feeling, like someone had filled his insides with ice. It was like he was seeing everything in slow motion, Mole's movements, the flickering of the various lanterns, even while his pulse increased.

Because Tony would had recognized those sneakers, those legs anywhere – he had taken measurements of them often enough because he had built a suit for _that_ body. Still, he hadn't yet seen the face of the person Mole was carrying, and so he hung to the hope that he had been mistaken, that there was… _just some purely coincidental resemblance_.

His hopes were crushed the moment Mole stepped away from the altar, having lowered the body onto it, revealing the face he had previously blocked from Tony's sight: the person lying on the altar was, as Tony had known it would be, Peter.

It was Peter.

Tony's Peter.

Peter Parker.

The altar was covered in Tony's dried blood and the unconscious, limp body they lowered onto the filthy surface was PETER!

Suffice to say, the sight was enough to replace the ice in Tony's veins with fire, with hot rage and burning hatred, and he wanted little more than to lash out, to break Mole's nose, to kick the air out of Jenkins, to fight his way to Peter's side to shake the boy awake so Peter would be given a fair chance of defending himself – had Peter been awake, Spider-Man should have had little trouble in eliminating the threat the Salivating Scorpions posed to him. Peter might had even managed to escape!

Tony didn't do any of that, however, the calculating realist in him managing to rule his emotions. However Jenkins had made Peter unconscious, it had to had been in such a strong way that no amount of shaking would wake him up any time soon since the manner of rendering him unconscious would had needed to be effective enough in the first place to take down Peter with his super powers. By attacking their captors now when Peter was out, Tony would not only reveal that he cared about Peter deeply and that Peter could therefore effectively be used against him, but he might also get himself injured in a manner that could later prove to be a hindrance in getting Peter back to safety.

Peter's unexpected appearance had obviously changed everything and Tony's plan of simply drowning the whole compound was no longer a possibility – for the time being – with Peter underground as well. Tony was ready to drown every single member of the cult, but not if it would cost Peter his life. Tony's number one priority was now getting Peter back to safety in any way necessary.

Tony could feel Jenkins' eyes on him. It felt like the woman was studying him, trying to gauge his reaction, and Tony refused to give him one, he was careful to keep his expression neutral, to not give away how deeply shocked and _scared_ he was over Peter's appearance. Peter's chest was rising and falling steadily, much to Tony's relief, and he had been allowed to leave his hoodie on which would keep him warm – or at least warmer than Tony was without any kind of a top – Tony observed, even as his mind was already working on the various reasons for Peter's appearance:

It was public knowledge that Tony had taken one Peter Parker under his wing and that the two had begun to spend a lot of time together – not that the majority of the public was in any way interested in the fact – and it was possible that Jenkins had kidnapped Peter to force Tony into being more co-operative. Perhaps Jenkins was planning on threatening Peter, Tony's protégé, in order to force Tony into giving her information on Spider-Man. Perhaps she would force Tony to choose between Peter's safety and Spider-Man's identity – which would propose quite a dilemma to Tony as revealing Spider-Man's identity would just put Peter's safety into further jeopardy, seeing as how Peter _was_ Spider-Man.

There was also the unlikely possibility that Jenkins had somehow managed to find out that Peter was Spider-Man and had made a move to take Spider-Man in without informing her cult of it, but unless Peter had revealed Spider-Man's identity to the woman himself, Tony couldn't see how she possibly could have found out the truth about Spider-Man. After all, Tony had taken every precaution possible to guarantee that Peter's secret would remain just that, a _secret_.

Tony took in Peter's still form carefully. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps whatever manner Jenkins had used in rendering Peter unconscious hadn't been effective enough – Peter was no ordinary teen, after all, and the amount of drugs that would had been needed in order to take down Peter would had killed a regular human being. That in mind, if Jenkins hadn't known that Peter was Spider-Man and if she therefore hadn't used strong enough method to render Peter unconscious, it was possible that Peter was now just pretending to be unconscious, having allowed Jenkins to lead him to Tony for rescue purposes. It was therefore possible that Peter was now waiting for an opportune moment, a distraction, to make his move.

A flicker of hope thus lit up, Tony smirked mentally – if Peter needed a distraction, Tony could provide him with one, because it just happened that he was _great_ at distractions. If there was one thing Tony Stark knew how to do, it had to be drawing attention – all the attention – to himself.

The plan of action made, Tony now needed to put it in action.

"Bravo," he therefore said in his most sarcastic voice, turning his gaze from Peter's still body to Jenkins and Mole, who was still standing next to Jenkins. "You have managed to kidnap a minor. How did you manage such a feat, I wonder. Did you tell him you had lost a puppy and needed his help in finding it, or did you convince him that you had candy for him in your nice white van and that he would get his favorite treats if he would come home with you?"

"Something like that," said Jenkins, "but the van was black, instead of white, and it had the SI logo on it. And instead of offering candy, I told Mr. Parker that he was urgently needed by Virginia Potts in the Stark Tower. He didn't even question it, he just jumped into the van and let me take him."

Tony, feeling more rattled by what she was saying than he let on, opened his mouth to give his retort, to keep on drawing attention to himself, but before he managed to utter a sound, Jenkins was again talking, addressing the Salivating Scorpions, having dismissed Tony once again as if he wasn't even present.

"My friends," Jenkins said, "this is a day of joy to the Scorpion and to Her followers! Hail to the Scorpion!"

"Hail to the Scorpion!" echoed in the tunnels as Henson, Gregory, Johnson, Mole, WD, KT, HL and FS all raised their voices in worship.

"May Her venom never be diluted!"

"May Her venom never be diluted!"

"This day," Jenkins continued, walking around the altar so that she alone stood behind it, leaning over Peter, facing Tony and the Salivating Scorpions, "this day shall be remembered as the day when the Scorpion was given blood worthy of Her! Lo and behold, my friends, for I have successfully captured Spider!"

With a few fast movements, she used her Mora knife to cut the front of Peter's hoodie open. She pulled the hoodie's shreds apart, revealing in process the red-blue Spider-Man suit Peter was wearing underneath. An excited murmur went through the hall and the men stepped closer to the altar, craning their necks to see Peter better. Only Gregory, holding his knife close to Tony's face, stayed behind to guard Tony, who felt dawning horror as he realized that Jenkins had indeed somehow found out that Peter was, in all actuality, Spider-Man.

If Jenkins had found out that Peter was Spider-Man, as the case seemed to be, she likely had also used a method effective enough to take him down which, in turn, meant that Peter was not, in fact, faking his unconsciousness but was out of it for real. Which meant that he and Tony were now both at complete mercy of the sick scorpion cult.

"Sister," Henson breathed out, pushing pass Tony and Gregory, coming to a stop but an inch from the altar, leaning over Peter. "Is this really Spider?"

"Do you doubt your Priestess?"

"No, no," Henson hurried to say, "it's just, this is such good news it's hard to even believe. How did you manage to find him?"

"Spider revealed himself to me himself," Jenkins' voice was as smug as the look she casted in Tony's direction, and the Salivating Scorpions seemed to hang on to her words like they were their only source of oxygen. "You see, my friends – and Stark – Spider must have known, subconsciously, that _this_ is where his true purpose lies, that he is needed by the Scorpion, that his purpose in life is to offer his blood to the Scorpion."

"You're all sick fucks," Tony managed from the lump in his throat. "You're all _sick_ …"

There was a sudden pain in his shoulder when Gregory slashed the skin of his shoulder open. The blood felt wet and warm, as it fell down his chilly skin.

"Don't speak to her like that," Gregory hissed in his ear. "Show some respect."

* * *

The Salivating Scorpions hummed while Jenkins cut the sleeves of the Spider-Man suit open from wrists to shoulders. By the time she was finished, both of Peter's arms were bleeding freely – and the Scorpion was lurking in the back of the altar hall, beckoned by the humming, its black eyes fixed on Peter's still form on the altar.

As soon as Jenkins backed away and raised her hands up, crying out loud, "Hail to the Scorpion!" the Scorpion scuttled across the hall straight to the altar and climbed up on it. The Scorpion began to feast on Peter's blood and Tony was helpless to stop it, he was helpless to do anything but to struggle in vain against their captors, to swear, to spit threats at them, to try to bargain with them. He begged for them to use _him_ in Peter's stead, he offered them his money, said he would join their cult if they would let Peter be, but none of it worked. The Salivating Scorpions just kept on humming as if Tony hadn't made a sound – and the Scorpion kept on feasting on Peter's blood.

* * *

Afterwards, when the Scorpion had gone back to the shadows and Peter lied on the altar, pale and still unconscious (it was a small comfort to Tony that Peter hadn't been conscious for the horror of the Scorpion drinking up his blood), Jenkins was careful to stem the bleeding of Peter's arms herself. She used butterfly bandages and wrapped Peter's arms in clean bandages, handling his body like she was playing with a doll, while simultaneously telling Tony of all the "hardship" she had been through to "find Spider". Tony got the impression that Jenkins, along with the Salivating Scorpions, was in a spectacular mood now that the Scorpion had been fed with blood "worthy of Her", and Jenkins' voice was joyful, her manner content, as she spoke to Tony.

"I have been planning this ever since June when I fought Spider for the first – and only – time," she said. "I was on my way to steal some dogs for the Scorpion from a pet shop in Queens – Beckett's Beagles, the shop was called, I believe – when suddenly this young boy with a spider mask jumped on me. Later I saw an article about _him_ , Spider in _New York Super Gossip_ and I instantly knew that Spider's blood was what the Scorpion needed."

"You see, I've got my own share of super powers, Mr. Stark," Jenkins continued, "and what a good thing that is, too, seeing as there are some quite nasty supervillains out there nowadays: what would this world come to, if supervillains had a free reign to our beloved country now that the good Captain Rogers has been forced into hiding! The world needs superheroes like me, that's a fact. And to think that today I have not only managed to feed the Scorpion with _Spider's_ blood, but I also still have got the evilest supervillain of them all in my custody – the infamous, corrupt Ironman himself, the man responsible for the – temporary – fall of Captain America! Rest assured, Mr. Stark, I will make you pay for what you have done, and I will record it all and send the footage to Captain America, the greatest superhero of all time. He will appreciate what I'm doing on his behalf – punishing you for your sins."

"I began to follow Spider online," she kept on going, barely stopping for long enough to draw breath, so excited she seemed to be, "and I soon noticed that he was working closely with you - with a _supervillain_. I initially assumed that he was a villain, too, but then I realized that he was actually just keeping an eye on you, sacrificing his purity for keeping you in his control. I knew then that I had to save Spider from your corrupt ways, Mr. Stark, just as I knew that the Scorpion yearned for his blood."

"I made a plan: I managed to get a job in the Stark Tower which granted me closer access to you and, in turn, to Spider. I knew that Spider wouldn't be far from where you were, considering he had made it his business to keep you from doing any further harm to our beloved world. I had my loyal men to kidnap you to lure Spider out of hiding – after all, he would have to find you to make sure that you wouldn't cause any more harm, that you hadn't been taken by any third parties that might aid you in your quest to destroy good people."

"Among my superpowers, I am able to form telepathic links with certain glass objects," Jenkins announced with audible pride. "I can control them, I can make them move as I like, I can make them do my bidding. What they see, I see. What they hear, I hear. In the guise of sending James Rhodes some proof of your suffering, I managed to have one of my glass scorpions to be put straight in the middle of all the action – exactly where I wanted my eyes and ears to be. Through the eyes of my scorpion, I saw the Avengers gathering in the Stark Tower, but more importantly, I saw _Spider_."

"You see, Mr. Stark, I knew that Spider would make an appearance sooner rather than later once the word of your kidnapping would reach him – and I was right: by the time my scorpion reached the Tower, Spider was already there. He was, in fact, the one to capture my scorpion. After that, it only took a few days for Spider to take off his mask _right in front of my scorpion_ , right where I could see his face. Seeing his face, I recognized him as the teen, the Parker kid who had been tagging along with you for months. From there, it was easy enough to lure Parker into a van and have my scorpions stung him unconscious."

Tony decided that he hated her, that he hated the Salivating Scorpions.

He gave Jenkins his coldest smile and made a silent promise to Peter – and to himself – to destroy the Scorpion and her cult.

* * *

They left Peter and Tony alone in the cell, safe for a glass scorpion – similar to the one that had stung Tony – that Jenkins placed next to the lantern outside the cell to face a seething Tony and an unconscious Peter.

"I don't need to be here myself to see and hear everything you do and say," Jenkins told Tony as she put the figurine down onto the ground. "One wrong move and we'll be on you before you know it."

* * *

It took a long while for Peter to wake up. It took him long enough that Tony began to worry that he never would wake up, and so Tony didn't leave Peter's side once, kneeling instead right there next to him, rubbing Peter's back, ignoring his own pain, ignoring all his own discomfort in favor of making sure that Peter _kept on breathing_.

* * *

The first thing Peter did when he regained consciousness was to tell Tony to not worry because he was there to rescue Tony. Peter, weak as a day-old puppy, unaware of the horror he had had to endure and their dire circumstances, croaked out that he would _rescue_ Tony.

As soon as he "could stand up".

The Salivating Scorpions weren't worth a drop of Peter's blood.

* * *

"I'm sorry, kid," Tony said with a weary sigh, leaning his head back against the wall.

"What for?" Peter's voice was uncharacteristically glum from where he was clumsily pacing their small cell. He was visibly frustrated with the way he had not yet regained his strength, for the way he was still wobbly on his feet like Bambi taking his first steps. "For getting kidnapped because of _me_? For getting _hurt_ because of _me_? What, exactly, are _you_ sorry for? Out of the two of us, it's _me_ who should be sorry for getting you involved in this whole mess!"

Tony sent an exasperated glare in the boy's direction, to which Peter answered by coming to a halt and crossing his arms on his chest in a petulant manner. He leant against the wall opposite of Tony and gave Tony a look so angry that it was probably meant to mask all the fear behind it – it didn't work, however, and Peter's ever so expressive eyes were now full of anguish, pain, fear and guilt. He scrunched up his face like he was in turmoil over some painful emotion, and the sight of it made something clench in Tony's chest. Tony hated - _hated_ how helpless he was, how little he could do for Peter in their current circumstances.

 _"I meant that I'm sorry for these unpleasant situations in which you sometimes find yourself in for being a hero, for doing what you think should be done – for catching the eye of a wrong person, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of this is your fault, Peter, and I'm sorry that you have to suffer through this. I'm sorry I wasn't able to protect you better. I feel like I have failed you,"_ Tony meant to say in a calm manner – terribly unsuccessfully, should be added, for it came out as,

"Oh, I'm _oh so sorry_ for _that_ stupid face you pull every time you're feeling guilty for some shit you didn't do, Parker! God, I hate that stupid expression. Why the fuck do you have to take the world on your shoulders, Peter? Get it to your head that _this is not your fault_ and stop feeling sorry for yourself! This cell is too small for your self-pity party, so either stop behaving like a mooning teenager or get yourself a bigger cell somewhere that is not _here_ – and do me a favor and _do not invite me to that pity party of yours_!"

Tony said all that very fast, gesturing sharply with his hand to the rhythm of his words, and Peter – with his face scrunched up now even more so than before - uncrossed his arms and clenched his fists, glaring at Tony like he had never before. By the time Tony stopped with his short tirade to draw breath, Peter was pointing at him with a trembling finger.

"I wouldn't invite you to my pity party even if you begged for an invite! Even if it was a fun pity party! _Especially_ if it was a fun pity party! And it would be a _party_ , not a _pity_ party, anyway, so stop talking about pity parties!"

They were both frustrated with themselves, with the situation, with their helplessness. They were not used to being helpless and at the mercy of others, some experience though both had of it due to their past as superheroes, and it was made all the worse by the other's presence; their fear, Tony knew, was not all for themselves but for each other which made them loath their helplessness – they did, after all, care a great deal for each other. That in mind, it was ironic that they were now taking their frustration out on each other: when they hadn't been planning their escape – in hushed voices to make sure the glass scorpion outside wouldn't hear and have Jenkins listen in on the conversation through it – they had been sniping at each other over the pettiest things, on and off, for what felt like hours, ever since Tony had filled Peter in on how the kidnappers had found out about Spider-Man's real identity.

Tony didn't even know why he was saying such mean things to Peter, of all people, but every time his gaze landed on the boy, the brick in his stomach gained more weight and his breath hitched, and he had to do, say, anything to distract himself from it, from his fears, from the terror he had felt when the kidnappers had first brought Peter in earlier that day.

Or that night. Tony couldn't tell which it was. He had long since lost what little sense of time he had ever had.

In any case, arguing felt, well, not exactly _good_ but at least better than any of the alternatives. After the initial moments of shared comfort, both Peter and Tony had put physical distance between the two of them and no sooner had the sniping begun. (Tony didn't know which one of them had started it, but he suspected himself. He was fairly sure that it had been him. It usually was him, or so he had been told by various people.)

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he now snorted, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated manner just because he knew it would annoy Peter. "But the truth is, if I showed up uninvited to your _pity_ party, you'd let me in because you would be _too polite_ to just turn me away."

"Whatever," Peter snapped, "and for the record, I've got plenty of retorts I could use right now, but as you put it, I'm just _too polite_ to use any of them."

"Politeness can take you far, kid, but only with the right kind of people. And _'for the record'_ , I'm not one of 'the right kind of people'. In fact, I'm the wrong kind of people in most aspects, so if you've got nothing to say to me, just flip me the good old bird and walk away to your corner. Works with assholes. I should know, being one."

"Can you please just stop demeaning yourself!" Peter yelled. "Why must you speak of yourself like that? It's really not cool and I hate it when you do it."

Tony didn't miss the way Peter, with a wince, glanced up at the ceiling, above which the roar of Atlantic Ocean was coming from. For Peter, with his spider senses, the distant roar and even the most silent of noises had to now be as loud as anything, in their confined silent space, filled with echoes.

"I might," Tony said quietly, "but out of the two of us, I'm not the idealist. I'm a realist and I call things as I see them without all the pink flowers and fluffy teddy bears and all the other idealistic nonsense your head is so full of."

"Whatever," was all Peter said before turning on his heels and walking to the corner furthest away from Tony where he proceeded to hug his knees to his chest while glaring everywhere but at Tony.

* * *

They came.

Peter tried to fight them, but they injected him with something that made him even weaker than he had been before. Tony tried to fight them to get them off of Peter, but they threatened to cut Peter with their knives and, to prevent them from harming Peter any further, Tony put his hands up and stopped resisting.

They took Tony away and left Peter in the cell to yell, to call out Tony's name after them.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _I'm back! I hope someone is still around to read my story, but I understand if you've moved on to other stories since it's taken me a looooong while to update. Sorry about that! Better late than never, yeah?_

 _This chapter was difficult to write. It just wouldn't come and I got kinda frustrated with it. Eventually I decided that I needed to let go and just move on to the next chapter, or I might never manage to do so. So, yeah..._

 _Not only did it take me a long while to write this chapter, I haven't even answered your reviews. I appreciate it so much when people take the time to share their thoughts with me and I hope you all know it even though I've not been answering!_

 _In any case, I hope you enjoyed the chapter - please take it as an answer to your review and let it be my way of thanking you!_


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